


Unaired Episodes

by Routcliffe



Series: Fortryllelse og Bakverk [1]
Category: Ylvis
Genre: Gen, No Sex, Norges Herligste, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 23:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 54,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3547529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Routcliffe/pseuds/Routcliffe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hermit seemed like the perfect candidate for Norges Herligste, and in gratitude, he gave the two eldest Ylvisåker brothers the chance to see a side of Norway they never dreamed existed.  Now they find themselves conscripted into an ancient battle of light versus dark, but things seem kind of...complicated.  Can Bård and Vegard become heroes?    More to the point, should they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. TEMPELMANNEN

##### Quiz time / An impossible church / Norway's Most Wonderful / Very good mead / Extraordinary uses of Norwegian flora #1: the daisy / Revyboys / Technical difficulties

The county road was narrow, unpaved, unnumbered, and hemmed in on all sides by greenery, still wet from the dew. "Tell me when," Vegard said.

"There'll be a little sign," Nico told him, from the back seat. 

"I'm watching out my side," Bård said. "It should be soon. Wait, is that it?"

Vegard braked, and peered at the only sign in the vicinity, a hand-painted birch plaque that read, in shaky white letters, "St. Gerd." Beyond it was a rutted track. "Should I even try?" he asked.

"The sign isn't very promising," Bård opined. "Unless Norway Heritage has eight-year-olds working for them now."

"We should see how it is," Nico said. "Go as far as the van will take us and then walk."

"Fine by me." Vegard backed up, and made the turn carefully, screwing up his face as he heard tree branches scrape the van's sides. To his chagrin, he had to close the windows. It was a gorgeous morning on St. Hans, the longest day of the year. There was a high-pressure system in the area, and that meant a grand invisible spiral of cool air in the troposphere above, and only blue sky and a few cumulus clouds below. He'd taken an antihistamine when he got up, so all the way from the hotel in Løddesøl he'd been enjoying the rich, heady fragrance of growing things, but he didn't want anyone to get a branch in the face. 

The lead had come from one of Nico's friends, at a party. Her parents owned a cabin somewhere up here, and the last time they'd been up they'd overheard the postmaster telling a customer that there was a hermit squatting in the old chapel. It was just a rumour, hearsay upon hearsay, but they needed a few finished episodes under their belts before they could air something and start soliciting tips from viewers. They already had a few hermits on their list, but it was a bit presumptive to think that all hermits were alike, wasn't it? And the chapel was another draw. It wasn't in ruins--by god, they'd built them to last in those days--but it wasn't being used, either, and for some reason it didn't get a lot of tourists. Even if the hermit didn't want to talk, Vegard did want to see the building. 

The greenery grew deeper and darker, a veritable tunnel of birch and pine and black alder, and Vegard heard the soft _shussssh_ of long grass sweeping the undercarriage. "I think this might be as far as we can go," he said, braking.

"Just a little further," Bård urged. "I can see it clearing up ahead."

In the end, Vegard managed to coax the grey van into the clearing. Nestled among a grove of oak trees, behind a well lined with flat white stones, was the chapel of St. Gerd. 

All five of them eased out of the van. While Nico and Ulf and Knut set up their equipment, Vegard and Bård explored the exterior. Vegard peeked down the well, and motioned for Bård to join him. "Quick, quick! What do you think this is?"

Bård, hands in his pockets, moseyed over. "It's not a Disney musical--that would be way too obvious--and if it's a herring, it's gone way off." He smiled, and opened his blue eyes very wide. "I'm going to take a wild guess that it's a well."

"But what kind of rock?" Vegard pressed. "Quiz time: is it sandstone, flagstone, or limestone?"

Bård took another look, and shrugged in resignation. "Limestone, I suppose."

"It's quartzitic flagstone," Vegard said. He leaned down to point out individual stones. "See the pink and orange? That's due to small amounts of iron oxide."

"Oh, riveting," Bård muttered, already wandering away.

"Well, it's interesting," Vegard called after him, albeit not very loudly. It wasn't that Bård didn't appreciate science; he just had a threshold, and you never knew when you were going to hit it.

Vegard turned his attention to the building. Most of Norway's oldest churches were made of logs split and set into the ground, but this one appeared to have been built of massive stone blocks. Larvikite, of all things. Marvelling, Vegard tried to slip his credit card into one of the seams. It wouldn't fit. 

"It's really all right," Bård said, sauntering past. "I have cash."

"Funny," Vegard grunted. "How old is this place again?"

"Marit said it's seventh century."

"Not possible," Vegard said. "Christianity didn't arrive here until the tenth century." 

Bård shrugged. "That's all I know."

Nico's voice floated over to them. "Boys, we're ready for you."

Both hastened to their places in front of the camera.

"Hi hi! We're at the chapel of St. Gerd, about two hours outside of the village of Løddesøl," Vegard said. "And one thing that's really interesting about this chapel here is that it is apparently three hundred years older than Christianity in Norway. And also, as you can see, it's made of stone, when the earliest churches in Norway were stave churches made of wood."

"The other thing that's really interesting, and the real reason we're here," Bård chimed in before Vegard could go into more detail, "is that the chapel has its very own hermit. Or so we've heard."

"Shall we look for him?" Vegard asked.

"Let's do that." 

The camera followed them to the door. The wood of the door looked new, but the doorway itself was a sandstone arch carved to look like two ash trees with their branches intertwining. A knock produced no answer. It was Bård who grasped the latch, and pushed. The door creaked open. 

The interior of the chapel was cool and dim, lit only by tiny windows. "No stained glass," Bård lamented. "Not even a rose window."

"Too old for stained glass," Vegard said. There were no pews--only a raised platform at one end, and a spiral carved into the centre of the room. He raised his voice. "Hallo?"

There was sudden movement in the log rafters, and then, in the shadows, something dropped to the ground. Vegard felt a sudden change in the air in the room, maybe a prickle of static or an imperceptible breeze. His eyes flicked over to Bård's: he'd felt it too. 

A small, slight man about twenty years old emerged from the shadows, wearing jeans and a leather jacket. His features were distinctly Japanese, but his hair was red. "Hi," he said, looking from one to the other in bewilderment. "What can I do for you?"

"Maybe you can help us. We're looking for the hermit who lives here," Bård explained. 

"I guess that would be me," the young man said, putting out a hand. "Call me Kit." His handshake was gentle. 

"Bård.”

"Vegard.”

"We're filming a television series called _Norway's Most Wonderful_ ," Vegard said. "Can we ask you a little bit about yourself and your life?"

" _Norway's Most Wonderful_? Kit echoed. "And you want to ask _me_?"

Bård said, "You have to admit that being a hermit in a Norwegian church is quite extraordinary."

"Yes," Vegard added for the benefit of the camera, "and a young Asian hermit in a Norwegian church more ancient than any Norwegian church has a right to be is rather more extraordinary."

The young man looked moved to the point of tears. "You think that _I_ am one of Norway's most wonderful?"

"Well, yes," Vegard said, a little bewildered himself. 

"It's hardly a usual set of circumstances," Bård said.

"I will give you that," Kit said. He sat, abruptly, in the middle of the spiral, and motioned for the brothers to join him.

"So, what's your story, then?" Bård asked. 

The young man smiled, and traced the spiral with his finger. "I was born in Japan--"

"You have no accent," Vegard observed. 

"No," Kit agreed placidly. "I fell in love. I defied my family to follow her here, only to discover that she was attached, and her family despised me. Norway hasn't been a particularly welcoming home for me, but I burned all my bridges in Japan."

"That's a bummer," Bård said. 

"It is," Kit agreed. "Eventually I realized there was no comfortable place for me in Oslo. I got on my bike and rode west. And found this place. It has everything I need. I have a few friends, and they stop by sometimes."

"You biked from Oslo?" Vegard demanded.

"Not a bicycle bike. An Alazzurra. It's still out back. It was always temperamental, but I keep it in good shape."

"Can we see it?" Vegard asked eagerly. Cagiva had stopped making the Alazzurra in 1987. 

"First, can you show us where you live?" Bård asked, scrambling to his feet.

"Sure." Kit rose smoothly in a single fluid motion, and conducted the two of them through a low door to a small stone staircase at the rear of the building. The stairs dipped in the middle, from the passage of thousands of feet over hundreds of years. "This is the oldest part of the chapel."

The air was cool down here, despite the warmth of the June day. On his way down, Kit took a candle from a small alcove and lit it. Nico and Ulf and Knut followed, swearing as they struggled to get the equipment down without damaging it or themselves. The flame of the candle looked small and feeble compared to the camera's lamp, but Kit nevertheless set it in another alcove further in. 

They were in a long but narrow chamber with stone floors. There had been patterns on the stone, runes and spirals and crosshatching, but parts were worn away with age. The ceilings were very low here: Bård had to stoop, and Vegard felt the top of his head brush the ceiling occasionally. The crew stayed on the stairs. Against one wall was a pallet, with blankets folded neatly at the foot and a black duffle bag at the head, and a copy of _Baudolino_ lay face-down on the mattress. Kit looked to be about two thirds of the way through it. The opposite wall was covered in rough-hewn, stone-lined niches. Some of them had jumbles of bones; some of them had stacks of books; some of them had canned food. "Are those...is this a crypt?"

Bård eyed the bones. "Right, you didn't put any of these here yourself, did you?”

Vegard thought that Kit might take offense, but the young hermit only laughed. "None of the bones, anyway. The place seems to have some bodies in it. I don't know who or why. But they don't bother me, and if I bother them, they're too kind to say anything."

"How long have you lived down here?" Bård asked.

Kit leaned against the stone wall, his arms folded. The shot was beautifully composed, and Vegard stepped out of the way to let Ulf get it. "Nearly twenty years now," Kit said.

"Twenty years?" the brothers echoed in unison.

Kit smiled. "I'm older than I look. But thank you. Now, would you like something to drink? Water, or tea, or--?" He suddenly lit up. "You know," he said, "I have some truly extraordinary mead that I've been saving for a special occasion, and this is the first time in more than a decade that I've had anything resembling a special occasion. Care to have a drink with me?"

"Sure, a little," Vegard said, mindful of the drive to Oslo. 

"Love to," Bård said. 

"Just a little is wise," Kit said, moving past them and deeper into the crypt. The brothers didn't follow. "I've only heard stories," he called back, and they heard him grunting with effort, "but it's supposed to be heady stuff. I won it in a contest...of...wits!" There was a yelp, and the sound of rock striking rock.

"Kit?" Vegard called, moving a little into the darkness.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Everything's fine." Kit emerged dusty and cobwebby and limping a little, carrying a small cask. He peered around the room, and then took a stemmed golden cup from one of the niches. 

"Is that a, what do you call them, chalice for communion?" Bård demanded, wide-eyed. 

Kit shrugged. "Maybe. But we're communing, aren't we?" The brothers contorted with surprised laughter. Kit unstoppered the cask, took an approving sniff, and then poured it into the chalice.

He passed the cup to Vegard first, who raised it to him. "To Kit, an extraordinary man," he said. 

"To friendship," Kit said. "To luck, and fun, and finding kindred spirits where you least expect them." 

"To Norway's most wonderful!" Bård added.

That all sounded good to Vegard, so he kept the cup aloft, even though judging by the weight, it seemed entirely possible that it was solid gold. "Skål!", he cried with the others, and drank. It was very good mead. Very _very_ good mead. He passed it to Bård, who sipped and then passed it to Kit.

Vegard rolled it around on his tongue, and felt its sweetness diffuse on his palate, blazing a trail of pure bliss down his throat and into his stomach, where it created a spreading warm glow so intense that his knees buckled a little. It also wafted through his sinuses, into his brain, which seemed to hum gently in response. "Hm," he sighed, dimly aware that Bård was making similar noises but not really able to care. He found a pillar to prop himself up against. The edges of his vision were filling with golden sparkles. He was dissolving, drowning, carried out to sea on a tide of very, very, _very_ good mead.

***

After a time, the tide carried him back into the shallows, and he sat admiring the rippling of water on sand until it resolved itself into the play of sunlight through birch leaves. He was sitting on slate steps, slumped against one doorpost of a very low door. This must be the back of the chapel.

A few steps in front of him, Bård was lying on the forest floor in his t-shirt and jeans, with his sweater pillowed under his head, his arms spread-eagled, and one ankle resting on one bent knee. His smile was beatific. "Hiiiiiii, Vegard," he singsonged.

"Båååååååård," Vegard harmonized. 

Soulfully, Bård sang, 

_Yeah, Kit has the best wine,  
And it makes me feel so fine_

_It gets into my brain  
And it takes away my pain_ , Vegard added. 

To their surprise, Kit chimed in,

 _It's the least that I could do  
For such lovely lads as you. _

_So let's all get plastered togeeeeeeether!_ they finished, in perfect harmony.

Bård inclined his head. "Where did the crew get to?"

"Out front," Kit said. "I think they got a little fed up with us."

"They should have gotten that on film," Vegard mused. There was something in the corner of his vision, and when he reached up and disentangled it from his curls, it was a daisy. "I have flowers. In my hair."

Bård glanced over at him, and started to wheeze with laughter. "Yeah. Yeah you do!" He rolled over onto his stomach, shoulders shaking.

"So, now, tell me about yourselves," Kit said. "We've talked all about me and my life, but not anything about you."

"It's a profile show," Vegard told him. He plucked something out of his hair, saw that it was another daisy, and put it back. "We're supposed to talk about you."

"But the cameras are over on the other side of the building, and I want to know who I'm talking to." Kit turned around to face him, and Vegard was struck by the suspicion that Kit might be flirting with him. 

"Just two cabaret boys from Bergen," Bård said, arranging himself into a sitting position against a birch tree. "We got discovered out of high school. We've done some stage shows and we're doing another one, and we had a radio show over the summer, and we also have this show now."

"Travelling all over Norway, looking for the most wonderful people," Kit said. "Well, you'll find some now, I dare say." His eyes lit up, and he fished inside his jacket for a moment. "Here's a good place to start," he said, handing Vegard a crumpled flyer. "A friend gave me this the last time she stopped by, but I don't...I don't much like crowds anymore. It's still good, right? I mean, not past?"

"It's tonight," Vegard said. Bård was too far away, so Vegard just waved the flyer at him. "A rave. In Oslo."

"'Midsummer Night's Dreamscape,'" Bård read. "Well, Oslo's where we're going next."

"Meet with the production team tomorrow," Vegard sighed happily. "And then back to our families in Bergen for the weekend." He couldn't keep a grin off his face. 

Kit cocked his head curiously. Bård grinned, and waggled his thumb at his brother. "Brand new dad, here. I've had mine for a little longer, but I'm still excited to get back."

Something on Kit's face clouded a little, but he said, with real warmth, "Family men! How lovely! Well...I hope that your job won't interfere, then." He gestured at the flyer in Vegard's hand. "Don't let any of that interfere with your family."

"No, no no," Vegard assured him. "We'll leave after the meeting tomorrow. And TV Norge has their schedule of course, but they have been pretty good about giving us time off when we need it."

At that moment, Nico appeared around the corner of the building. "I thought I heard actual conversations happening. Have you sobered up enough to make some decent TV?"

"Yeah," Vegard said, standing up. Nico must have motioned the others over, because a daisy fell from Vegard's hair into his hand, and the camera was there in time to catch his giggling fit. 

Bård, meanwhile, got easily to his feet. Something off to the side seemed to catch his eye. "Kit, is this your bike?"

Vegard brushed the last of the daisies from his hair, and followed Bård to the motorcycle on the side of the chapel sheltered by birch trees. The Cagiva Alazzurra 650. Small and red and sporty, it looked every bit an eighties motorcycle, but Kit had kept it looking new. The original panels on these bikes were supposed to be of poor quality, but he'd maintained them well. The engine and components were sourced by Ducati, Vegard knew. It was capable of fifty-six and a half horsepower, and forty and a half pounds of torque. The brakes were known to be temperamental on some machines, but they had a reputation for being very reliable bikes on the whole. 

"This is fancy," Bård said, running a hand along the seven fox tails tied to the antenna. They were, like the bike, in immaculate condition, and it was hard to believe that they had ever been exposed to the elements, but Vegard had an equally difficult time imagining someone like Kit, who used a crypt as a pantry, painstakingly untying the tails every time he drove or got rained or snowed on, and then retying them on fine, idle days. 

Kit shrugged. "This seemed like as fine a place as any to keep them." He stroked a tail proudly--a trick of the wind made it look like it was moving--and said, "These are a status mark where I come from. No one cares here, of course."

"We care!" Bård assured him. "These are very fine tails."

"Very fine," Vegard agreed.

Kit beamed. "You are both marvellous young men, do you know that? Would you like to be famous?"

"What?" Bård said.

"Famous," Kit said. "You've been so kind to me. This has been one of the best afternoons of my life. I'd like to do something more for you."

Vegard waved a hand. "It's kind of you to want to, but we're already pretty well known. And busy with our families."

"Of course," Kit said. "Perhaps another time."

Off camera, Nico was making a wrap-it-up signal. Vegard thought a minute, and then reflected that this was probably a good place to break the conversation. 

"Kit," Bård said, as all three of them walked through the trees to the front of the chapel, "we want to thank you for an amazing day, and a great tour of your chapel."

"You exceeded all of our expectations," Vegard added. "You've been a superlative host."

"And you two restore my faith in humanity," Kit said, ignoring their extended hands and pulling them both into a hug. The brothers patted his back. "Remember," Kit whispered while their heads were together, "if you change your mind about fame--world fame, let's say--you know who to call on. I keep my promises." He broke the hug. "Be excellent, boys. And be careful."

The crew loaded what gear they could into the back of the van. Vegard and Bård helped where they could, and then got into the middle seats. "What?" Nico said. "I thought Vegard was driving back."

Vegard turned around to where they were arranging the cases in the back, and rested his chin on the back of his seat. "I'm very sorry about it and it was in no way my intention, but considering I just got blackout drunk, I don't think it's a good idea for me to drive."

"Blackout drunk from a sip of mead? Four hours ago?"

"Four hours?" Vegard squawked.

"I only remember the one mouthful," Bård said, "but I assumed there was more later."

Ulf shook his head, closed the back of the van, and went around to the front passenger seat. "One sip each for the three of you. I thought you were hamming it up for him, but it just went on and on. We helped Kit haul you out and get you some fresh air, and used that time to take care of the paperwork, and then just wandered around to the front to wait. Got some good shots of the well, and there's a menhir nearby."

"I guess if it was only one sip..." Vegard said. He undid his seatbelt and wormed his way into the driver's seat up front. Getting turned around was a bit tight, but soon they were driving away, with Kit waving at them. 

Vegard checked the rearview mirror, and did a double take. For a moment it had looked like Kit wasn't alone, but a second look showed him that what he'd thought was a woman by the well was really only a bit of mist, or a swarm of insects, or something insubstantial at any rate, that had temporarily formed a shape that Vegard associated with a woman. But the atmospheric conditions were entirely wrong for fog: it was full daylight, there was no precipitation, and they weren't very close to the coast at all. Probably insects, then.

Relieved, he turned his gaze to the road. They went around a bend, and the chapel and Kit vanished from sight. 

This was the Solstice, and the sun was high in the sky even in late afternoon. The leaves on the trees were in full splendour, their green still kissed by gold. In the strip of grass at the centre of the road, alsike clover, speedwell, and knapweed waved in the breeze. A toad hopped out of the way of the wheels, while its rider brandished a tiny spear. 

Vegard slammed on the brakes.

It was hard to open the door with the undergrowth pressing in on both sides. Shoving made the door fetch up against a smooth-skinned birch. The knots swivelled around, and furrowed in anger. Vegard made a strangled noise and pulled the door shut, and put his forehead on the steering wheel for a little while, breathing hard. 

He felt hands touch his back, and twitched away until he realized that it was only Ulf in the passenger seat, and Bård behind him. "I'm not good to drive," he said. 

Knut had taken the other middle seat, so Vegard had to crawl between seats and over laps to the very back seat. Then Nico took his place up front, because he was the only sober one who wasn't still burdened with equipment. There was surprisingly little grumbling. Bård had clasped Vegard's forearm briefly as he wriggled by though, concern and a question in his blue eyes. Vegard closed his eyes and tightened his mouth a little, and hoped that Bård would read that as distress but not urgency. 

When they were out at the county road, headed back south towards the E18, Knut turned and dangled the boom mic over them, while Ulf filmed. "So that was Kit," Bård said. "Very nice man. What did you think, Vegard?"

"I thought he was very welcoming and kind, a very good host to a bunch of people who just showed up in his sanctuary," Vegard said, trying hard not to look at the shapes that darted through the trees alongside the van. "Um...I thought it was a little sad, too. He seems so lonely."

"Well, yes, but he's made a space for himself, and that's not doing badly."

"He's got very good mead," Vegard said. "I'm starting to think there might have been more to it than ordinary mead."

"Extraordinary mead for an extraordinary man," Bård agreed. "I'm still quite giddy."

Ulf turned off the camera, and everyone relaxed a little. Vegard leaned forward. "Can we see what happened after we drank?" he asked. "I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of missing four hours, and I'm still feeling the effects too."

Ulf rewound, making incredulous faces at the screen. Finally he said, "Here it is...but I don't think we can use any of this."

There were groans all around the van. Technical difficulties had already lost them one other interview. They would have to do it over, but if they were going to make check-in at the hotel, it couldn't be tonight. And they had no way of contacting Kit, and anyway there was no way to duplicate a first meeting. When they'd redone that first interview, it had been too lacklustre to use.

Vegard and Bård craned their necks to see the screen. The problem was readily evident, and insurmountable. They were looking at the crypt, and while the brothers showed up just fine, Kit showed up only as a shifting blur of black static. "He looked fine when we were filming," Ulf sighed. 

It was a little unnerving to watch as the shape that was Kit passed the cup to Vegard. At the moment that he drank, something happened to the light, a reflection or something, and the picture flared white for a full fifteen seconds. When it came back, the black static was setting the cup back in its niche, and Bård and Vegard were sitting on the floor giggling and batting at the air. 

It was embarrassing, really. They were apparently carrying on a conversation with Kit, but with him neither visible nor audible, nothing they said made any sense, and it was hard to imagine what kind of response would enable sense to be made. They also kept pointing at invisible things, and occasionally interacting with them. Vegard seemed to be playing with a litter of nonexistent kittens, while Bård craned his neck at the ceiling, and then clapped his hands over his mouth and laughed so hard that he fell over. 

"Turn it off," Bård groaned. "This is painful. We were like that for a full four hours?"

Knut shrugged. "We weren't there the whole time. We helped the kid get you upstairs and outside, and he promised to look after you while we took more establishing shots. Every half hour or so Nico would go and check on you."

"I thought it was a bit weird, what he said," Nico told them. "Kit said, the first time I asked what was wrong with you guys, 'The King's Mead is powerful stuff. They'll need some time to get used to it.'" He looked hard at Vegard. "In retrospect, I probably should have asked more questions, but filming with you guys, I'm so used to seeing extreme weirdness that I just took what he said at face value. But if you want to stop at a hospital and get checked out..."

"No, no," Vegard said. "I'm just a little...if it doesn't go away, I'll see my own doctor in Bergen. Kit was nice. I don't want to go all paranoid."

Bård had tucked himself into the corner formed by the seat and the door, and had tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "Don't even worry about it. Don't drive, either, but I mean, just relax and enjoy."


	2. RAVERDAMA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best time to go to a rave / Kirsti takes an elfie / Bård earns a cookie / Serving the light / Extraordinary uses of Norwegian flora #2: the silver branch / An unorthodox cologne

Bård awoke when they were crossing the bridge at Lysaker. The sun was lower in the sky, but still not down. With some surprise and just a flicker of unease, he realized that he hadn't slept off the effects of the mead, not entirely. All the tiddliness was gone, but he still felt exhilarated, and a little strange. And as they left the E18 and Nico drove the van through the city streets, Bård realized that he was still getting some visual effects, too. 

Vegard sat in the back seat, his posture tense, his eyes watchful, two fingers of his right hand running back and forth over his upper lip. When Bård looked back at him, Vegard took his hand away and offered up a tight little smile. "Hey," he said. 

"Did I miss anything?"

"No. Just... No. No."

"We made good time," Bård observed. "Let's see that flyer?"

Vegard fished it out of his pocket. "I'm very curious, but I don't know if I'm in any shape for it. I'm still a little..." He waved a hand next to his head.

"That," said Bård, "is the best time to go to a rave."

"I guess I won't stand out," Vegard said with a feeble grin. He pitched his voice to reach the crew. "Would you like to come?"

"Can't," Ulf said. "I have to see if there's anything I can do to salvage this footage. Don't get your hopes up, but I have to try."

"I'm getting a little old for that sort of thing, boys," Knut told them.

"You go on," Nico said. "Just make sure you're functional tomorrow. Vegard, make sure your brother is on time."

Bård let out a little huff of annoyance, but Vegard nodded. His hand was over his mouth again, and he pulled it away. "You can count on me," he said, straightening up in his seat.

***

By the time they had helped the crew unload and gotten booked into the hotel, the sun was down. Bård had been ambivalent about the rave when Kit had handed Vegard the flyer, and at first he'd rather hoped that Vegard would forget about it, but the nap had helped a lot. Now, in the middle of Oslo, seeing the sea of lights, hearing the pulse of the city, smelling summer on the wind, and feeling the mead still humming through his blood, he was up for anything.

He changed his shirt, and put on his leather jacket. Not fancy, but not bad. He glanced over at Vegard. "That's what you're wearing?"

Vegard was still in his plaid cargo shorts and striped sweater. "Yeah, this is fine," he said. "You can pretend you don't know me. Just keep your phone on."

That stung, but Bård suspected that it wasn't supposed to. Just Vegard being practical. "It's not that," he said. "I just thought...you're a good-looking guy, Vegard. Show it off once in awhile. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the ladies." He made his hands into upturned claws, and scrunched up his face in anguish. "Won't somebody think of the ladies?" he sobbed.

"I've got my ladies," Vegard told him, the corners of his mouth lifting a little. "And the rest seem to find me okay in this. Look, I'm steeling myself to be a little bit uncomfortable there anyway. If I have to be self-conscious about the way I look, I'll be miserable."

"Fair enough," Bård said.

The two of them walked out together. They picked up kebabs at a stand, and grabbed a taxi. It dropped them off at the place indicated on the flyer, a club by the docks called Skygge. The bass was audible outside. "Look," Vegard said eagerly as they approached. "It has all its permits. And they're all up to date. That's good to see."

Inside the doors, the music was hard and driving. A bored-looking bouncer examined the flyer, and motioned them in. Bård was a little surprised that there was no security check. They paid two hundred kroner each at a table where a young woman with a punk haircut drew symbols on their hands in Sharpie, and then they were in the club, amid lasers and spinning lights and thumping bass and a sea of people.

"This is a bit intense," Vegard shouted into Bård's ear. 

"If you want to bail, we can bail," Bård said. He wondered if Vegard had noticed that both the bouncer's and the doorwoman's ears were pointed. 

Vegard shook his head, and said something Bård didn't quite catch. But he had edged past Bård and was moving deeper into the club, so he must have decided it was okay for now. As they navigated the press of bodies, Vegard turned back to his younger brother and yelled, "Everyone here is really beautiful."

"See what you're missing? Maybe you ought to do this more often." But when Bård took a closer look at the crowd, he saw that they went far beyond dressed-up-for-a-good-time beautiful. It was more than the woman who seemed to be wearing a dress made out of moss, or the man with reindeer horns affixed to his brow. These people were ethereally gorgeous, male and female alike. And their ears all came to delicate points.

They were near the bar now. Vegard laughed. "Now you know how it feels," he told Bård over his shoulder, and his face was alight with joy. 

"How what feels?"

"Usually it's me in a sea of blond heads."

Bård looked at the crowd. The lights made it hard to tell, but Vegard was right: Bård was one of only a handful of people with light hair. It looked, on the whole, like Fairytale Night at a goth club. Or Goth Night at a fairytale club. 

They'd made it to the bar when Bård felt fingers run through his hair. He stiffened, and whirled around to see one of the few other blond people grinning at him. She wore a tiny dress, the colours of which kept shifting in a way that had nothing to do with the lighting. "Thought you might be slumming too," she said. "You're cute, for a human. Can I buy you a drink?"

He'd been planning on having a couple, but in a room full of pointy-eared people who felt okay about touching him without permission, he didn't feel quite safe. "Thanks, but I'm still recovering from the last one. So...you're slumming, are you?"

She nodded, with a half shrug. "They throw a good party here."

"'They' meaning...?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh gods, another lumper. Take a walk through Ekeberg at night sometime, and then you can tell me we should all hold hands and sing 'Danse i en Ring.'"

"This is really interesting, but I have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about."

She closed her sapphire blue eyes in disgust. "Gods, you're just a babe in the woods, aren't you? How did you even find this place?"

For reasons he couldn't articulate, he didn't want to tell her about Kit. "We're filming a TV show called _Norway's Most Wonderful_. One of our tips suggested that we might find wonderful people here."

Her face lit up. "You have a camera with you?"

"We were scouting, so it's just my phone," he said, pulling it out. "It takes good video, though." He woke it up, and activated the video camera. "There. Want to say hi to the Norwegian people?"

She waved. "Hi, humans! I'm Kirsti, and I'm a lios alfr, like in your Tolkien movies. We're real, and we're here, and we live right alongside you, and mostly you never notice."

"Lios alfr," Bård echoed. "That's, like, elves, right?"

"Bright Court elves," Kirsti said, with the air of someone making a correction. "I mean, I love the svartalfar, they really know how to party, but I'm one hundred percent Bright Court and proud."

"How have elves gone all this time without being noticed?" Bård asked, shouting so that the phone's microphone would pick him up over the music.

"It's called glamour," she said. "I guess you'd call it magic; to us it's just technology we use to protect ourselves."

"How does that work?" Bård found himself asking. 

She shrugged. "I really dunno. It's not my field."

"Oh. Why, what's your field?"

"Troll biology."

"Oh."

She leaned forward. "So, can I, like, touch your ears?"

"What? Sure, I guess." Bård propped the phone up against one of the taps at the bar, and brushed back the long blond hair on one side of his head. 

She put out both hands, and gently ran her fingers along the tops of both of his ears. "Oh, wow. Oh wow! That is so weird! I could do this all night. Do you, like, hear better because of the shape?"

"I really don't know," Bård confessed.

Her touch changed a little, became lighter and slower, and extended now to his earlobes. She leaned even closer, moistened her lips, and looked deep into his eyes. "Are you here alone tonight?" she asked. 

"No," he said. "My girlfriend and children are in Bergen, but I'm here with my brother." He used the excuse to step out of her range and gesture to Vegard, who was in the middle of an animated conversation with a young round woman with olive skin, widely spaced eyes, her straight dark hair in a pixie cut, and yes, pointed ears. 

Kirsti's face fell, turned wary. "Oh," she said. "Brother?"

"Yeah."

"Looks like he's into dark meat," she observed, looking straight at the other woman. She pushed off from the bar, and ran a hand down the side of Bård's face and neck. "If you want to play with the cool kids, we've got a private room upstairs," she whispered, and then she stalked off into the press of dancers.

Vegard had fallen silent, and looked dismayed. His companion leaned forward. "Apologies if I scared off your prospects for the evening," she shouted.

"She wasn't a prospect," Bård assured her. "She was just playing with my ears."

"We're both attached," Vegard added. "To women, I mean; I've got my own ears. Bård, this is Gisela. Gisela, my brother Bård."

She nodded. "I see the resemblance." Her handshake was firm. "Your brother was just telling me that you're entertainers."

"Yes. We have a little show...I guess you told her, right, Vegard? As a matter of fact, do you mind me recording you?"

She laughed. "You can try. I'm not what you'd call photogenic."

Vegard cocked his head. "Why?"

"Oh no no no," Bård said, at the same time. "You're beautiful."

She smirked. "You can try," she said. 

"Thanks!" He tilted the phone's camera towards her. "So, um, can you tell us who you are and what you do?"

"I'm Gisela Freidag," she told Bård, "and I'm a diplomat. Specifically, a negotiator."

"Really great! Are you allowed to talk about what you negotiate?"

"In broad terms," she said. "Certain marginalized communities in Norway are looking for better representation in the institutions that govern and set policy. Most people of good will agree that this needs to happen; it's just a question of how. And I am one of those tasked with answering."

"Applause for that," Vegard said. "It sounds like really worthwhile work." He and Bård clapped. Gisela laughed. 

"Are you with the UN?" Bård asked.

"No, no. Another NGO called SULA. We're small. I really doubt you've heard of us."

"NGOs are great," Bård said. "Did Vegard tell you we grew up in Africa?"

She snorted. "Oh, congratulations, white boy. You get a cookie."

Bård lowered his eyes, a little embarrassed, and then he glanced over at Vegard, to see if his brother had noticed. 

Vegard was frowning at something in the middle distance. Bård wondered if someone had tried to touch his ears without permission. His eyes narrowed and narrowed, and they swivelled far to the side although his head didn't turn, and suddenly he yanked hard on their arms and barked, "Gisela, DOWN!"

Bård dropped to a crouch, expecting gunfire or an explosion. Gisela was crouching too; Vegard had gone halfway down, and then straightened up. Gisela glanced at the sea of legs, gave Bård a once-over and then a small nod, and they both stood. 

There was a commotion in progress right in front of them. The crowd cleared away from a blond man in skin-tight leather, who stood pointing what looked like a crossbow the size of a handgun. He eyed Gisela with a look of utter contempt, and turned away, making no protest when two of the bouncers seized the crossbow and grabbed a shoulder each.

Bård felt a thump next to him, and turned in time to see the bartender, a handsome young elf with dark skin, vaulting the bar. Upon landing, he gently shoved Bård out of the way and went to Gisela. "Dr. Freidag..."

"I'm okay," Gisela said, her eyes large. She made as if to put a hand on Vegard's shoulder, but drew back at the last moment. "This boy saved my life."

Vegard had gone very white, and he was clutching his forearm. "I'm okay," he told Bård with a shaky laugh. "All that, and something stung me." He started to pull up his sleeve on that arm, and then stopped. His breath hitched a couple of times. "Actually, I think...you might want to..." He went rigid, and toppled into Bård's arms.

Bård eased him to the ground. Vegard's eyes were wide, and his breath came in little whoops. "Call 113!” Bård shouted. The clubgoers seemed to be in the middle of a mass exodus, and while Bård thought one or two might show some concern, it seemed that they gave the brothers even wider berth. Even Gisela was keeping her distance, waving her hands and shouting, and the bartender was nowhere to be seen. 

Bård pushed back the sleeve that Vegard had indicated. It took him a couple of sweeps to find what his brother had been talking about: a little barb, a sliver really, in his forearm. Bård pinched it between the nail of his thumb and forefinger, and pulled it out. 

The music died abruptly, and suddenly he could hear what Gisela was shouting: "Get away from him! There's nothing you can do, get away!"

"I got it, though," Bård told her. "It's just a little--" But somehow it caught in the quick of his thumbnail, and sent liquid fire shooting up his own arm. He let out a wavering cry, and collapsed next to Vegard, limbs jerking.

***

On the catwalk above, an office door banged open. Audhild Kristtorn, operator of Skygge and handfasted of the brother-in-law of the Queen of Air and Darkness herself stood framed in the doorway, face stormy. "What is this?"

"Elfshot," the bartender said. "Aimed at Dr. Freidag. She's okay, though."

With a look of shock that faded to supreme annoyance and infinite weariness, she left the office. Two bouncers were waiting on the stairs, a sullen lios alfr between them. "He fired it," said the woman, who was fair-haired but brown-skinned. 

The lios alfr set his jaw, and raised his head to meet her eyes. "I seek only to prevent the Dissolution, my Lady."

"Oh, I know. And I'm sure you'll be more than happy to explain it to the dálki."

He drew himself up to his full height. "You may break me, and imprison me, and torture me until the light leaves my eyes, but my cause is just. You may think your lot will improve, but mark our words, this will end in a holocaust the likes of which elvenkind has never seen!"

"I don't have time for this," Kristtorn sighed, and made a shooing motion at the bouncers, who shuffled themselves and their prisoner so that there was enough room for her to pass. "Casualties?" she called up to the bartender, who still stood on the catwalk.

"A couple of humans. Noobs. There's fresh magic on them, but they were utterly clueless, and no one knows who they are."

"I serve only the light!" the lios alfr called behind her.

Kristtorn found Dr. Freidag standing over the bodies. "Gisela, I'm so sorry," she said. "Are you hurt?"

Gisela shook her head. It took some time for her to focus on Kristtorn, and her features were expressionless. "The curly one threw an arm in front of me. And then the fair one...tried to take it out of him."

"Stupid."

"They asked if I was with the UN, Audhild. They asked permission to take video of me." A look of pain crossed her face, and she reached for Bård's cell phone and stopped the recording. "I don't think they had any idea...about any of this."

"Did you get their names?"

"Vegard. And Bård. They have families."

Kristtorn realized what she was angling at. "Gisela..."

"And a television show. _Norway's Most Wonderful_. People will come looking for them, Audhild. They're human. There's still time."

She was right. Humans would come looking. Now that she was thinking of it, the names rang a bell. Her thirteen-year-old had loved a Bård and Vegard on the radio last summer. They were a bit vulgar, but funny. That was no basis on which to make decisions, though!

"You'd have done it for me, wouldn't you?"

"For _you_! Not that it would make much of a difference with elfshot." 

Gisela held her gaze. Kristtorn eventually looked down with a look that she hoped indicated dispassion and revulsion. Vegard's eyes were open but lifeless, his face fixed with a look of fear. Bård was still twitching. "Fine. Save the pretty one, I suppose." She reached into the pouch around her neck and pulled out a silver twig, and tossed it back without looking. 

Behind her, Gisela caught it, and pressed it to Vegard's temple. His back arched, and he sucked air into his lungs. 

At the foot of the stairs, Kristtorn turned back, staring fiercely at Gisela. "I said the _pretty_ one."

Gisela turned quickly to hide a grin, and touched the twig to Bård's forehead. His muscles unclenched and his breathing eased immediately.

Kristtorn glowered at the bouncers and the lios alfr. She glowered at the bartender, and at the DJ. The office door slammed, and the glower relaxed into a grin. Good old Gisela. This was going to be all _her_ fault. And that was okay. And Gisela knew it.

Kristtorn's satisfaction, though, changed to fury as she remembered what Gisela had saved those human boys from. And what they'd saved her from. An assassination attempt, in her Skygge, on one of the holiest nights of the year. He'd get a slap on the wrist for it, too. She was trying to be welcoming, trying to be open-minded, trying to be bigger than the sneering brighties at the university and the Samkoma. And yet somehow they still saw fit to treat her as though she were so, so small.

***

When the dálki had questioned Gisela thoroughly and she had placed the Seal of Luotettavuus on her statement, they offered to drive her home. She refused politely, and used Bård's cell phone to call a cab. Humans weren't part of the dálki's jurisdiction, but these two were part of hers. She could at least get them to someplace safe.

She thought of pouring them into the back with enough money to get them anywhere in the city, but when the car showed up, she crawled into the middle seat, and got the bouncers to arrange a brother on either side. Bård, drifting in and out of consciousness, curled up against the door. Vegard's eyes were still closed, and he'd only just started answering questions in the last half-hour--none of them terribly coherently. He was slumped against her shoulder, and that was just fine. 

For now, anyway. "Where are we taking you?" she asked. 

Bård mumbled something petulant. 

Now was as good an excuse as any. She buried her fingers in Vegard's curls (not as satisfying as it looked; he was using a lot of product to tame the sides), and lightly scratched his scalp. "Come on, where's home?"

He squirmed, and then sat up for a moment and looked at her with his face scrunched up, his dark eyes glittering with fever. He slumped back down. "Bergen," he said, indistinctly.

"We're not cabbing it to Bergen!"

Bård cracked his eyes open. "You know what? Take us to TVNorge Studios. Please."

When the car pulled up at the glass-fronted building, Gisela told the driver to wait, crawled out over Vegard's lap, and tried the door. It was locked, of course.

"It's okay." Gisela turned to see Bård clutching the car door to hold himself up. It wasn't really working. "We'll just sit out front until people show up. It's a warm night. I can sleep anywhere, and my brother...I think he'll sleep too, just this once."

"Nonsense," Gisela rushed to him, and got her arms around him. His height was unwieldy, but she was able to get him to the front of the building. She held her hand against the door, and felt the satisfying click of a bolt sliding back. She wondered if its human users felt that kind of deep satisfaction every time they opened it. "There. Where do you need to go?"

"I don't remember, and I can't..." Bård clutched at the lobby furniture. 

"Okay, okay." She eased him into a chair, and went back outside.

Vegard wasn't that much shorter than his brother, but he was easier to manage. He was also a little bit more awake now. "What happened to us?" he asked.

She'd thought about what to tell him. "You had a bad reaction to something. It's okay, though. The club owner had the right stuff on hand to counteract it before it was too late. I know you probably feel pretty terrible right now, but it's nothing a good night's sleep and some fluids shouldn't take care of." Although how they were going to get either in the lobby of a television studio was anyone's guess.

She deposited him on an uncomfortable-looking couch next to a plant stand. "Thanks," he whispered, and curled up. She resisted the temptation to brush his hair back and plant a kiss on his forehead; she would be furious if anyone took advantage of her like that. 

"Yes...thank you," Bård said, with one arm thrown over his eyes. "You saved our lives." She stiffened. How much did he remember? "We've got a morning meeting here."

Gisela let out the breath she'd been holding, and grinned at them. "Well, I don't know how much you boys remember, but let's just say you made yourselves worth the trouble. But for future reference, there are probably safer places for you to party than Skygge. Thank you for...everything."

***

Bård was drifting off to sleep when he was shaken awake again.

A security guard stood over them. "Guys? Guys?"

Bård cracked his eyelids. "Mmm. Nils. Morning?" 

Vegard sat bolt upright, yelped, and then sank down with a hand pressed to his forehead. "Are we late?" he said faintly.

Nils laughed. "No, no. It's four in the morning. I'm covering for Punam. Her daughter just went into labour."

"Oh, congratulations to her," Bård said.

"Yes, congratulations," Vegard echoed, with his arms wrapped around his head.

"How did you get in? Did someone give you a key?"

"Gisela," Bård said. "She let us in."

"The camera said it was just you guys." Nils' brow furrowed. "Lots of interference, though. I might have missed something. Listen, though, I can't let you just pass out in the lobby."

"We're not drunk," Bård assured him. "We went to a rave. Somebody must have slipped us something. Gisela said we had a bad reaction."

"I got stung," Vegard said. "I remember, something stung me. And a man-- I don't know. It was all very weird."

"She should have brought you to a hospital, then--not a TV studio!"

"Nevertheless, here we are," Bård said. "And I don't feel bad enough to go to a hospital, but I don't feel good enough to get out of this chair."

"We're early for our meeting," Vegard said brightly, still hiding his head. 

Nils laughed, and shook his head. "I should know better than to go up against the forces of Ylvis. Okay, there's a cot downstairs. I can probably take the mattress off and put one of you on that, and pad the frame with blankets for the other."

In the end, though, it was all either of them could do to get to the elevator. Nils asked them twice on the way down if they really wouldn't rather go to the hospital. When they managed to convince him, and had drunk, between them, an entire pitcher of water, they shared the cot uncomplainingly.

***

At eight forty-five, the head of production, her secretary, and Nico entered the room specified for that day's production meeting. They were surprised to find the Ylvisåker brothers already there--pale, scruffy, sniffly, unshaven, in last night's clothes, and redolent of the eco-friendly orange cleanser that the janitors used on the hardwood (Bård had proposed it as an alternative to reeking, and Vegard had convinced him to at least use it on clothes instead of skin), but present and reasonably coherent. Progress was discussed, schedules were updated, and ideas were put forward. It finished with a brainstorming session that went really well, but the head called what felt like a premature end to it so that the brothers could get back to the hotel, collect their luggage, and make their flight back to Bergen.

In the corridor on their way out, she stopped them. "Nils told me everything," she said. "I appreciate you still making it in on time, but for future reference, when you're trying to decide between going to the hospital and making a production meeting, _go to the hospital_. We'll understand. Now go home and get some rest."

Three hours later, on the plane, Bård started to nod off as per usual, but then remembered something, and checked his phone. He found that he had filmed about half an hour of video the night before. When he and Vegard tried to watch it, though, the picture was all lens flares, and the audio was so distorted that it could have been anything.


	3. JAKTLAGET

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The art of shamelessly buying tampons / Bård recites the Prose Edda / Extraordinary uses of Norwegian flora #3: the toadstool / Troubadours / Bård eats crow

Vegard came up to him while he was in line at the drugstore. " _There_ you are. I was waiting outside."

"I saw you," Bård said. He moved his body enough so that Vegard and no one else would be able to see the box of tampons in his basket. "Maria," he said, _sotto voce_. "What? Don't smirk! You'd buy them for Helene, wouldn't you?"

"Not like _that_ ," Vegard said. He grabbed the basket, plucked out the box of tampons and handed it to Bård, and put the empty basket by the counter. "There! Be proud! No one thinks you're buying these for yourself. It means you're cozy with a woman, right? A fertile woman, if you want to be an absolute caveman about it." He looked around at the shelves, and then handed Bård a box of truffles. 

"These too?"

"Just watch."

When Bård put both items on the counter, there was an exclamation from the backpackers standing behind them. "Ohmigod, best boyfriend _ever_ ," one of them said in American-accented English. "Can we take a picture?"

When Bård had posed and paid and he and Vegard were walking out of the store, he said, "And you say you're not good with emotional stuff."

Vegard shrugged. "What emotions? It's just sense." They got into line at the coffee shop. "If you're buying tampons, it means that you're being a decent boyfriend. No embarrassment there. And chocolate never needs a reason of course, but if it did, it has theobromine, caffeine, and phenethylamine, all of which affect serotonin levels in the brain, serotonin of course being-- Hi hi. Grande hot chocolate, please?"

"Yes, and could I please have a grande vanilla frappuccino with soy, a shot of hazelnut, and whipped cream?"

Vegard made a face at him. "Oi. She asked you for your drink order, not the Prose Edda."

"You're one to talk!" Bård made a little flourish with his hand. "The barista began her questioning thus: 'What is the beverage that thou wishest?' I answered: 'It is called in thy speech Frappuccino, but in the manner of my people I have four addenda: one is vanilla; the second is soy, that putteth lactose intolerance to flight; the third is a flavour shot, being in this instance hazelnut; the fourth is whipped cream, the Guilty Pleasure.' Then asked the barista: 'What is thy name, that we may summon thee at the conclusion of its preparation?' I answered--Vegard? You look really terrible." In the light of the shop, his brother's cheeks were the colour of parchment, with scarlet and yellow highlights around the eyes. 

Vegard passed a hand over his eyes. "Yeah, that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about."

Then delivered the barista their drinks unto them. The day was sunny, for once, and Vegard had secured them a table outside on the promenade by the simple expedient of placing his Martin Backpacker on the chair. They found the guitar, and sat. "The other day," Vegard said without preamble. "That mead we had. What did it taste like, to you?"

Bård put his chin in his hands, and said, "Mm, something like a full-body orgasm while lying on a sunny beach in Mallorca listing to a remix of all the choirs of heaven. Why do you ask?"

"Because I've felt funny since then, and this morning I went to the doctor, and the doctor told me I'm probably okay, but that the mead was most likely spiked with reindeer urine."

Bård made a show of recoiling. "How festive. Reindeer pee makes you hallucinate?"

"The reindeer eat toadstools. Humans can't eat them without organ damage, but reindeer can metabolize the harmful compounds and excrete the hallucinogens." Vegard narrowed his eyes over his hot chocolate. "I said I was feeling funny. I didn't tell you I was hallucinating."

"I'm sure I would have noticed in the taste," Bård said, "but since Thursday I have been tripping extravagantly." He pointed. "For example, in that fountain is a naked man playing a violin."

"I was afraid to say anything," Vegard said, but a lot of the tension went out of his shoulders. "And--" He twitched, and spun in his chair, as a beautiful woman in a full blue skirt walked by. "Jesus! Did you see that? She flicked me with her tail."

"I saw _something_ ," Bård said. 

"I was so scared," Vegard said. "It started Thursday. I was seeing things on the way home, and everyone at the rave had pointed ears. I'm on the older side to be developing schizophrenia, but I still thought... But if it started for you on Thursday too, it must be the mead."

"I saw the ears too. The girl I was talking to, my, like, fellow blond there, said she was a Bright Court elf."

"I wonder if that could be behind...whatever happened to us at the club. If something interacted badly."

Bård thought back. Most of the night was a blur, but he remembered Vegard falling, and pain rocketing through his own hand, and he threw off the memory with a violent shudder. "We'll probably never know. Anyway, we're both recovered now, right? Except for sharing the same hallucinations. Or are we just that exceptional at reading each other?"

"There's a way to test," Vegard said, and started fiddling with his Massive Cell Phone of Doom. A few seconds later, he handed it to Bård, with a new note open. Then he pointed to another spot on the promenade. "Type what you see."

Bård typed, "green garden gnomes carrying dead crow," and handed it back.

Vegard scrolled triumphantly, and showed him his own note: "5 nisse in camo w/dead raven." "It was a raven. You can tell by the size. Also it's shaggier and its tail is shaped a bit differently."

Bård scanned the passers-by, and caught the attention of a young blonde woman. "Excuse me, miss, but do you see anything odd over there?" He pointed to the gnomes.

She looked. "No. No I don't."

"All right, thank you."

"There you have it," Bård said. "Shared hallucination. Although..." He thought about what Kirsti the elf had said about glamour. "There is _one_ other possibility. Go and speak to one of them, Vegard."

"You want me to talk to a garden gnome?"

"I'll give you fifty kroner."

Vegard eyed the little creatures dubiously.

"And I _won't_ tell Mom what really happened to your bus pass. For at least another year."

Vegard shot him a poisonous look, but he got out of his chair. Halfway to the gnomes, he doubled back, and got the Martin out of its case. "Singing to thin air makes a little more sense than talking to it," he explained. Bård grabbed his own (slimmer, sleeker) cell phone and started filming.

Vegard's fingers picked out a few tentative chords as he moved through the promenade. As he neared the gnomes, he started playing in earnest, something noodly and medieval-sounding. He started to sing: 

_Hail to thee, five steadfast warriors_  
_I see you've returned from a kill_  
_A bird no doubt wicked and wily_  
_I praise your superior skill_

Unable to resist, Bård jumped up from his chair and took over the next verse: 

_Hail to thee, five steadfast warriors_  
_Now that thou hast slain the beast_  
_Pray, may my brother the troubadour_  
_Share just a taste of your feast?_

The gnomes appeared not to notice him, until the very last line. The first nissen halted, looked at his fellows, and then looked back and up at Vegard, whose face was fixed in his most guileless smile even as he took his hands off the guitar and, behind his back, brandished both middle fingers at Bård. "I was going to sell the eyes," the nissen said, "but for a pair of musicians such as yourselves, I might be willing to come to a deal."

"What sorts of terms would be acceptable to you?" Vegard asked.

The gnome indicated one of his fellows with a motion of his chin. "Skerry here owes a debt to the Lady Thorne for saving his daughter's life last year. Paying it would be his undoing, but you lads look like you could manage it all right."

Skerry, third in line, looked much younger than the others, but also thinner and more careworn. "Gorse, no. Those eyes would have you set for life. It's my debt."

The brothers exchanged a look of dismay over the heads of the gnomes. 

Bård began, "What is this--?"

And Vegard said, "Done."

While the brothers pantomimed angrily at each other, Gorse had the others put down their load. He insisted on shaking Bård's and Vegard's hands. Then he pulled a small, sharp knife from his belt, and dug out the bird's eyes. Solemnly he handed one to each of them. 

Bård stood with the tiny eyeball in his hand, not sure what to do. His first inclination was to throw up, but that struck him as ill-advised. And Gorse said, "Well, hurry it up! They lose their potency fast. Down the hatch, boys!"

After another look at Vegard--who was white as a sheet, but plainly steeling himself to go through with this--Bård mustered all the spit that he could, closed his eyes, and clapped his open hand to his mouth. He felt the eye hit his tongue, and had to fight to keep himself from retching. He swallowed, hard and fast, and then reeled back to the table, washing the eye down with mouthful after mouthful of frappuccino. 

A few seconds later, Vegard joined him, still shuddering with disgust. He downed his hot chocolate, and stood hunched over the table for a few seconds, panting hard. Then he made one last face and turned back to the nisse. "Lady Thorne, you say?"

Skerry, who looked like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders, gave them a Mount Fløyen address. "Arrive late in the day," he told them. "Many thanks, _Overbakkenmen_. And thank _you_ , Gorse."

"Your friendship is thanks enough," Gorse said gruffly. The gnomes took their places back at the bird, lifted it, and continued their procession.

Bård walked shakily to his chair and flopped down in it. Vegard stood watching the gnomes recede. He still looked horrified, but his fingers were noodling on the guitar. Bård realized, with some amusement, that he knew exactly what notes Vegard was going to play. Could feel him deciding to play them, almost. They were getting really good at this stuff. But more importantly, the noodling meant that Vegard was okay. His older brother was logical to a fault, skeptical sometimes to the point of rudeness. Bård would have given nisse on the Bryggen promenade even odds of shutting him right down, but if he was playing, that meant he was processing. 

Eventually Vegard wandered back to the chair and sat, stowing the guitar in his gig bag. "I'm sorry," he said. "You were about to ask what we owed, and I just cut you off and said yes. That was probably too far again, wasn't it?"

Bård shook his head. "I think I would have agreed eventually no matter the amount. Did you see Skerry's face?"

"I just...when his friend was doing something that seemed like a big sacrifice, I couldn't go, oh, never mind, just kidding." Vegard shut his eyes, and started rubbing his upper lip. "But that means, whatever we owe, it was considered worth a little girl's life, and worth a fortune."

"Which makes you wonder why Gorse didn't just give his friend whatever he made off the crow's eyes," Bård said. "Which, come to think of it, were also worth both a little girl's life, and a fortune." 

"In some Inuit cultures, seals' eyes are considered a delicacy. But I couldn't even chew mine."

Bård shuddered, and fought down another wave of nausea. "It was weird, the way he just leapt to it, though. I joked about a taste, any taste. For _you_ , not even me. And suddenly he's like, 'Oh, musicians? I guess you want the eyes.'" 

"Yeah." Vegard met his gaze. "We're sure we're not hallucinating?"

"Not really." It helped, a bit, to think of the eye as a hallucination. "If it is, though, I'm rather impressed with my subconscious. This is hefty stuff."

Vegard shook his head. "It doesn't make sense, for it to be anything else. It goes against... everything." He gestured at Bård's phone. "Let's play it back."

Bård stopped the recording, and went back to the beginning. "Okay, I've got you...and..." His brow furrowed. "That's it, something is definitely wrong with my camera. It's frozen." He thumbed through. "My last frame is the back of your head. And it lasts ten minutes!"

Vegard lowered his eyes, and Bård could see the gyroscopes spinning. "I guess we'll see what happens when we go to pay off this debt," he mused eventually. "If we get the doll woman out of the way early Monday, we can stop by this Lady Thorne's on our way out to Haugesund." He closed his eyes. "God, I'll miss them. Helene deserves more help with the packing. And Emma changes every day. I remember you telling me that about Sofie, and being like, 'Yeah, whatever,' but it's absolutely true."

"Let's go home, then," Bård said, picking up the pharmacy bag. "We've got two weeks to be in each other's pockets, and only one more night for you to spend with your favourite women." He rattled the pharmacy bag. "And for me to be the best boyfriend _ever_."


	4. RESSURSLEDER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petit-fours / Alternative payment methods / Vegard earns a cookie / Huginn's eyes / Garlic and fenugreek / Mr. Rational

Lady Thorne lived in a large house on the side of Mount Fløyen. When Vegard had rung her to say that they had a television show called _Norway's Most Wonderful_ and they would love to interview her for it, and by the way they would also like to pay Skerry's debt, she had sounded delighted. 

As he and Vegard walked up the narrow street to the address they'd been given, camera crew in tow, Bård said, "Did you grab cash?"

"I asked her what we owed," Vegard said, "but she said to just come, and it would all be worked out when we got here. I do have my checkbook, but if it's too much I might have to postdate it and then borrow a bit from Mum."

"We'll split it between us," Bård said. "We wouldn't owe anything if I'd kept my mouth shut."

Vegard snorted. "I was thinking the same thing about myself," he said. 

They clammed up as Nico walked forward to join them. "So, I didn't quite catch it: what's extraordinary about this woman, again?"

"She--" Vegard began, and then stopped.

"She knows some really interesting people," Bård said. "So we are relying a little bit on faith that she will be interesting herself."

Nico gave them a dubious look. But then he said, "Do any of these really interesting people stubbornly refuse to show up on film?'

"Why, yes, as a matter of fact," Vegard said.

"Ah."

The address proved quite easy to find. The house was large, and painted the blue of a summer sky. A sign out front spelled "Olivia Thorne" in curly letters. Those wishing to enter had the choice of a cobblestone walk to the stairs, or a wheelchair ramp. Vegard took the steps; Bård pulled himself up on the railing of the ramp at its highest point, and then threw a long leg over. They reached the door together, and rang the bell.

Lady Thorne was taller than Vegard but not quite as tall as Bård, and a bit posh. She wore a peach-coloured pantsuit and a wide-brimmed hat more suited to sunbathing than anything, and her brown hair was in a single braid coiled at the nape of her neck. She could have been anywhere between thirty and a well preserved sixty. Her Norwegian had just a touch of Manchester in it. "Hello, gentlemen."

"Bård," Bård said, sticking out his hand. She didn't shake; she took his fingers and squeezed them lightly. 

"Vegard," Vegard said, and she gave him the same treatment. She did the same for Knut, Ulf, and Nico, too, before inviting them inside.

The foyer and the staircase to the second floor were gleaming oak. After hanging her hat on a coathook, Lady Thorne brought them through a door into a baroque-style parlour. The only concession to Norwegianness was that everything appeared to be white. Tea and a tray of petit-fours were waiting for them on the coffee table. "Do have some," she said, as she affixed the microphone Knut handed her to her lapel.

"Is that a UK accent?" Bård asked, taking a seat on a sofa with an ornately carved wooden back. 

"Indeed." Lady Thorne had remained standing. "I grew up in Huddersfield, but when I left my husband I felt the need for a change, and Norway seemed congenial. This was before immigration was as tight as it is now, so there was no headache."

Vegard, who had installed himself on a wingback chair with clawed feet, piled a china plate high with petit-fours, and then brought them around with napkins so that the crew could take some. The few that were left he kept in front of him, nibbling at them every so often with a look of pure rapture on his face. "Is there anything you really miss?" he asked.

Her eyes turned wistful at this, but after a moment she quirked her mouth and said, "No. Nothing...nothing that would be there if I went back." Her stomach rumbled audibly. "Oh dear, pardon me! I skipped lunch." Bård scooted over to make room for her, and motioned her towards the snacks she'd set out for them, but she smiled and shook her head. "Thank you, but those are for you. I can't eat sweets. We'll take care of business in a bit, and I'll be fine."

"If it's keeping you from your lunch, we can do it now," Bård said. 

"You'd do that? It feels rude in the middle of tea, but I'd be so terribly grateful."

"Certainly, we'd be happy to," Bård told her.

"And I can't tell you how glad I am that Skerry found men willing to cover his debt. I didn't want to go after him for it, but this has been a very lean week."

Vegard scraped some fondant off his thumb with his lower teeth, did a quick swipe of his hands with the napkin, and pulled his checkbook out of his pocket. "How much?"

Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my! No, no, put that away. I see you've misunderstood entirely." Her eyes ticked from brother to brother. "You're both over eighteen?"

"Yes," they said together.

"Healthy?"

"Yes."

"Sexually active?"

Bård and Vegard looked at each other, and then at the camera. Nico snickered, and gave them a shrug. Vegard turned back to her. "Yes," he said. "We both have girlfriends and children, and we are both very happy with them."

"So, not married, but monogamous." When they nodded, she said, "Good. Hard drugs?"

"No!" Bård said.

"Well," Vegard said, "there might have been something in the mead we drank a couple of days ago." 

She raised her eyebrows. "Have you had anything to drink since?"

"No," Vegard said.

"A glass of wine last night," said Bård. 

"All right, last question. You said something about a van. Who drove?"

Vegard raised his hand.

"Perfect!" she exclaimed, and took hold of Bård's forearm, drawing him up. 

"Why is that perfect?" Bård asked, as she steered him out of the parlour, down the hall, and into the room at the back of the house. "I don't quite understand what the questions have to do with..."

"Because it's better for me to choose the largest person," she said, motioning for him to sit in a soft leather chair with a low back. The room had a desk with a computer, a couch, a standing lamp, the leather chair, and next to it a small stool with no back. The pictures on the turquoise wall were bland seascapes, and it felt a little like a psychiatrist's office. "But you shouldn't drive for a little while afterward." As soon as he'd settled in the chair, she put a hand on his forehead to keep him looking straight, and pressed something cold and wet to his neck. He flinched a little, but before he could bring his hand to the spot, she bent her head and sank her fangs in.

He heard Vegard's cry, as he and the crew came clattering into the room. Bård, on the other hand, felt a deep, sweet peace spreading through him. "It's okay," he told them, making a little smoothing gesture with his hands. "I'm fine. This is fine." He saw Vegard's panic, a keen silvery thread in the back of his own mind, and blanketed it in calm.

Vegard shuddered and blinked. The tension went out of his body, and he took a couple of steps back. "Okay. I...I feel like we should give them five minutes," he told Nico and Ulf and Knut. 

"How do we know that's even Bård talking?" Knut demanded. "She's latched right onto him."

"It's Bård," Vegard assured them, a thumb coming up to rub his upper lip. "I felt...I mean...I just know." 

As the feeding progressed, Bård felt only happy, comfortable, and relaxed. He tried to project as much of that as possible to Vegard, who was sitting on the couch between the crew, alternating between silently freaking out and basking secondhand in his brother's euphoria. 

And then Lady Thorne was pulling away and licking her lips, and Bård felt...well, drained. She pasted a bandage onto his neck, and raised the footrest on his chair. Vegard sprang from the couch and sat on the arm of the chair, at Bård's side. He took Bård's pulse. "A little fluttery," he reported. He asked Lady Thorne, "How much did you take?"

"A litre."

Vegard shook his head. "You should have taken me instead."

"No," she said, laying a hand on his head briefly. "You're just that little bit smaller, and you're driving. I've got some Ringer's lactate solution in the cupboard. Your brother will be fine."

She went off to the cupboard. Bård noticed that the window reflected her office, but not her. 

"A litre is too much," Vegard said quietly. "You can't lose that much. I mean you can, of course you can, but not without feeling it." 

"I'm not feeling very well," Bård admitted. "But if it was Skerry, he'd be dead right now, right?"

And then Lady Thorne was back with a tray, and an IV pole with a bag on it. She swabbed the inside of Bård's elbow, and expertly stuck a needle into a vein. "Give this about half an hour," she said. Then she draped a fleece blanket around his shoulders, and placed a silver-stemmed wine glass filled with golden liquid in his free hand.

"What's this?" he demanded. "The last time I drank out of anything this fancy, my life turned very strange, and it hasn't gone back yet."

"Well, this is apple juice," she laughed. She handed him a small china plate from the tray. "And cookies." Vegard reached for one, and she playfully smacked his hand away. 

He gave her a forlorn look, but what he said was, "So, you're clearly a vampire."

"Clearly," she agreed, taking a seat on the stool. 

"How did you...how did you get into that?" Bård asked around his cookie. It was jam-filled, and quite good.

"I was the winning contestant on _Who Wants to Join the Ranks of the Undead_?," she replied dryly. "The judges hated me, but I won the SMS vote by a landslide. Really, boys, what do you think happened? A vampire bit me. I was in an abusive marriage, in a time and place when divorce was unthinkable and would have left me and my children destitute. When a vampire came to the village, everyone else saw a terrible plague, but I saw my way out."

"Um," Bård said, fingering the bandage on his neck. "Am I going to...?"

"No, no. You have to lose enough blood to otherwise kill you, and the venom has to reach a certain saturation point, before your cells start changing."

"The venom is why Bård was so blissed out?" Vegard asked. 

She nodded. "Nowadays all you have to do is say something is good for your health and people will endure any amount of pain and hardship, but before that I wouldn't have gotten very far without it, and it does help attract return clients."

"Wait," Bård said. "For your _health_?" 

"I hadn't gotten to that part yet," she said. "You're in pretty good shape, but you should be taking vitamin D, and sleeping more, and doing whatever you can to put yourself under less stress. Also..." She smacked her lips meditatively. "More greens. And do be careful about the elves, won't you?"

Vegard stood. "This is a practitioner's office!" he said wonderingly. "People come to see you to have their blood drunk. For their health."

"Bård, how are you feeling now?" she asked. 

"Hm? I feel good. A bit woozy, you know, but still very pleasant."

"So, very pleasant, and you just got some important pointers. I took more from you because of the debt, but normally I take a pint. The way you feel right now, would that be worth a pint of blood?"

"Sure," he said. "I think I'm okay with the litre, even. At least until I try to stand up. So, that's what you do? And you don't need to kill anyone?"

"Goodness no," she laughed. "Why would I do that? Blood's a renewable resource, and I try to be responsible with it. I've got a steady clientele. Normally I never get as hungry as I was when you came in, but I've got two clients out with strep and most of my others are on vacation this week."

Vegard frowned and bit his lip, and Bård knew what was coming next well enough to roll his eyes a little and mouth the words along with him: "Let me try."

"You're driving," the vampire reminded him.

"Well sure, but what about just a taste? I want to know what kind of results you get for me."

"I suppose," she said slowly. "Normally that's not how I do things, but since I've just eaten, I'm full enough that a taste is all I'd be interested in."

Vegard sat on the arm of the chair again, tilted his head to one side, and brushed his hair back, exposing his neck. He screwed up his face like he expected it to hurt. 

"We're not going to do the neck for just a taste," she said, "and anyway when you bend like that the muscle covers everything up." She moved the stool over to the other side of the chair, and took Vegard's hand. Then she rolled up his sleeve and pressed her ear to the inside of his elbow for a few seconds. She pulled a fresh alcohol wipe out of her pocket, swabbed, and bit Vegard's forearm. 

He pulled in a sharp breath, and then let it out in a happy little sigh that turned sad as she withdrew her fangs. "Just a mouthful," she said brightly. "Hm, I can tell right off you've been eating fenugreek."

"Is that bad?"

"Not really. It just makes everything taste like fenugreek. Oh, and congratulations! Is this baby your first?"

Vegard nodded warily. "Thanks. How could you know that?"

"Lots of happy daddy hormones. I bet you're so proud. Hm. You should be taking vitamin D like your brother, and getting _much_ more sleep. And you want more brassicas, love. More veg in general, but especially brassicas. And pulses. And maybe a little less cured meat."

"All that stuff gives me gas," Vegard said.

"My advice is to endure it."

"Oi, we'll have to endure it too," said Knut. "We share the van with him."

"Sweets are okay though, right?" Vegard pressed.

Lady Thorne grinned and handed him a cookie. 

"I noticed that I'm not seeing your reflection in the window," Bård said. "That part of vampire lore is clearly true, then. What about the other things? Garlic and crosses and sunlight and whatnot?"

"I don't mind garlic," she said. "It's like fenugreek, it permeates everything, but if it's a taste you like and you don't have to be too much in public the next day, then it's fine. Crosses are also fine. I used to be Church of England, so for awhile I would see one and get a bad conscience, but I've worked through that. I'm not a monster, and I'm not going to let the people who think I am make me feel guilty."

"Sunlight?" Vegard asked. 

"Direct sunlight is bad for me. The cell transformation that I was talking about earlier...the researchers at NUA have found--" 

"Sorry, NUA?" Bård broke in.

"Norge Universitetet for Alvar. They've found that the cells develop certain crystalline structures that degrade in UV light. Curiously, it seems to be linked to intelligence. A reasonably bright vampire will burst into flame in direct sunlight. The very dimwitted ones will just sparkle a little. We'd all love to find out why, but I'm sure you'll agree, there's no real ethical way to test it."

"I want to ask about the telepathy," Vegard said. "I've heard of it in vampire stories and films, but how come the only one I can sense is Bård? I'd think it was because you fed from both of us, but he was...he was sharing with me before you even touched me."

"That's nothing to do with me," she said. "That's Huginn's eyes. I could taste them on you both, among other things. I assume that's what Skerry gave you in exchange for taking his place."

Vegard said, "Huginn...that's one of Odin's pet ravens in Norse mythology, right? Thought. The other was Muninn, Memory. He gained his wisdom by sending them out every--"

"We know," Bård snapped, and then felt bad for it. "And that...that was the bird? Whose eyes we...?" Suddenly, his own cookie wasn't sitting well. 

Lady Thorne looked appalled. "So you didn't know what you'd gotten were Huginn's eyes. And you didn't know you were paying for them in blood. And I'm guessing that, given your brother's crack about hard drugs, you don't know much about the King's Mead, either." She stood, looming over them both. "And elfshot, and you've got Unseleighe magic all over you... How much do you know about any of what you've stumbled into?"

Vegard was watching her with large, anxious eyes, running his fingers over his upper lip. Bård said, "That's the show. We just go from place to place, and meet interesting people, and go along with whatever they want us to do, and look ridiculous. It's kind of our thing."

The vampire turned away from them, and loomed over the crew. "What about you? Do you know what's going on?"

"We know less than they do," Nico said. "We were there for the mead, but all the kid said, to them or us, was that it was special. And I never heard anything about raven eyes or elfshots or any of these other drinks."

Lady Thorne's eyes narrowed. "Oh. 'The kid.' I think I know who you're talking about. She's a trickster. And it would be just like her to drag two hapless mortals into all this for amusement."

"Him," Vegard corrected, still toying with his lip. "We met a boy. And he was really very kind."

She rolled her eyes a little, and said, "Right. Well. Sorry boys, it's not my job to sort this out for you, but I strongly advise you to find someone who can. And in the meantime, stop acting like two-year-olds, putting everything in your mouths. Maybe you can get away with that in the mortal world, but your _friend_ "--she used her fingers to mime scare quotes--"just made your lives a thousand times more dangerous. Not everything out there is pretty. And even when it's pretty, don't count on it to be friendly."

"We've tried to do research," Vegard said through his fingers. "It's...frustrating." He took his hand away from his face. "Millions of Google results for everything, many of them contradict each other, and the more reliable a source is, the less it seems to say."

Lady Thorne bowed her head for a moment. "If I told you the smart thing would be to leave this alone, to go to your homes and families, ignore whatever strangeness you see, and spend the next six months keeping your heads low, could you do that?"

"No," Nico said for them. "Sorry to break in, but they signed a contract."

"We're in showbiz," Bård added. "If we keep our heads low, we can't afford to eat."

She sighed. "Then NUA is in Kristiansand. There you'll find real research and real experts, not thousands of pages of narrative license. If you don't get yourselves killed first."

Knut said, "Well, we are scheduled to swing around that way again in the next couple of weeks."

Bård checked his watch and the IV bag, and saw that even if she sounded done with them, he still had some time. "We'll definitely go there and do more research," he assured her. "But right now it just seems so great to talk to a real live vampire. Well, you know what we mean. Do you keep in touch with other vampires?"

"A little," she said coolly. "There's a social network online."

"Fangbook?" Vegard suggested, in English. 

"No," she said. Then her lips twitched. "I think I'll call it that from now on, though. You see, if we were going to slaughter indiscriminately, we could work in packs. We used to. But if we're managing our resources properly, it means that we have to spread out and become sort of amicably territorial. There are occasional get-togethers, but so far none has been close enough that I've been bothered to go."

"And does it ever get boring?" Vegard asked. "Just eating the one thing, I mean?"

"I remember worrying about that," she said. "Right at the beginning. But your palate changes, you know. And humans have a much more varied diet than the animals that you farm for food, so the taste changes. You, brothers, taste as different from each other as, I don't know, channa dal and spaghetti."

"Which of us is which?" Bård asked. "I bet Vegard is channa dal, because he's more exotic. Right?"

"He is channa dal, but it's because he tastes more like fenugreek, and you're spaghetti because you've been eating garlic."

***

And thus it proceeded, until the IV bag was empty. Bård was grateful for a hand up from Vegard, but the moment of dizziness soon passed, and then he was fine. Lady Thorne, who had warmed to them again over the course of the questioning, apologized for letting the tea get cold, cautioned Bård against exerting himself for the remainder of the night, and gave them the rest of the petit-fours to take with them.

At the door, the sun was down and she didn't bother wearing her hat as she saw them out. "Don't be so trusting, okay? At least ask questions. People for the most part aren't bad, but you're used to a different set of rules. So you follow the rules you know, and we follow the rules we know, and suddenly you've got fangs buried in your jugular. I feel rather awful about that. I thought you knew. Didn't you wonder why I was asking you about your sex lives?"

Bård shook his head. "We're pretty used to it by now."

"Oh god, now you've got me wondering what kind of world _I've_ stumbled into," she laughed. Then she hugged them both. "Off with you now. Be safe. Be careful. More vegetables!"

As they walked back down to the van, Vegard broke the silence. "Are we summarizing?"

"Right!" Ulf said, turning around in the street and switching everything on. "Of course." 

"Well, that was Lady Olivia Thorne," Bård said to the camera. "I still feel a little bit strange, but I'm mostly back to my old self, and I would call the visit altogether pleasant and enlightening."

"She was a lovely woman," Vegard agreed. "Not at all like I would have expected a vampire to be, if I had known to expect a vampire. She fed us tea and cake and cookies, and analyzed our blood for us in a way that I never would have thought of, but makes perfect sense."

"She did get a little bit frustrated with us," Bård pointed out. 

"It was a friendly, motherly kind of frustration," Vegard said. "She's right; lately we seem to be getting into a lot of situations we don't really understand. And I don't think that's our fault, but it would still be good to be cautious."

"Yes, we're lucky to have gotten her advice now, while we're still in one piece, aren't we?"

When the camera was off and they were walking again, Vegard swatted Nico on the shoulder. "You know what would be really fun? For that last shot, as we're standing there, post-production should turn us both into bats."

"That would be awesome," Bård agreed.

Nico fluttered his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Boys... Look, we'll talk in the van, all right?"

As they loaded the gear, and as Vegard manoeuvred the van through the quiet streets along the side of the mountain to Ole Irgen's Vei, the journey was completely silent. It was only when they got onto the 585 that Nico said, "Okay, first thing: that was a vampire."

"We noticed," Bård assured him. 

"It wasn't exactly subtle," Vegard said.

Knut protested, "But neither of you believe in any of this stuff. Bård, you I can see playing along, but Vegard? I can't believe you're okay with this. You're Mr. Rational."

Vegard laughed. "You didn't see me on Sunday night. All the time I was packing, my hands shook so badly that I chipped Helene's delft pitcher. Fortunately it was an artful chip."

"You all saw what we saw just now," Bård said to the crew. "How could we not believe, with it right there in front of us?"

"I'll admit that it confounds my idea of the world a little," Vegard added, "but telling myself it isn't real because of that isn't rational either, right? I've never believed in the other stuff because there's no evidence, only people's weird impressions and nonsense. But now that it's in front of us, the scientific thing to do is collect information and find out how it works and how it fits in. And with a camera crew, now we can get some evidence of our own."

"That's okay, isn't it?" said Bård.

From his seat in the middle row of the van, Nico looked from brother to brother. "I don't know what to do," he said finally. "Proving any of this would make us famous--besides revolutionizing science and whatever--but the second problem I have is, I can't exactly go to TVNorge and say Hi, yes, change of plans, we're scrapping the schedule and filming vampires and witches and weird Japanese crypt-dwellers now."

"That's not what we're asking you to do," Bård said.

"No," Vegard agreed. "We can fit trips in on the side."

Ulf looked up from the camera. "Yeah, stick with the original shooting schedule." He passed the camera forward so that Bård and Nico, and Knut if he leaned far forward, could see the footage from the meeting with Lady Thorne. Tea poured itself; Bård staggered down the corridor on his own, and when the crew caught up with him he was bleeding spontaneously from the neck. There was a hollow sound, like wind, and the brothers appeared to be conversing with it. 

Once, Bård exclaimed, and pointed a finger. Ulf had swung around and gotten a shot of the window. The room on film seemed to have only five men in it, but the window showed the distorted but unmistakable reflection of Lady Thorne.


	5. MARERITTDAMA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something perfect / Vegard listens / The trouble with America / Underjordiske / The gift

Vegard stood in darkness over his daughter's crib, the antique crib that he and Helene had refinished together, watching her sleep and quietly marvelling. He prided himself on being good at details, but he'd had no idea that he could help to make anything this perfect. Neither had he had any idea that it was possible to love another human being this much. He stroked her petal-soft cheek with his thumb, and thought, as he always did, that his heart might just burst with joy.

He heard the door open, and turned, and the joy iced over. A black horse with eyes of blue flame stepped into the room, looking at him. He couldn't move. He couldn't scream. But as the horse took on, rather, the contours of a woman, he found the strength to shape his lips into a breathless plea: "Don't hurt her, please don't hurt my Emma."

The figure stuttered. The woman was right beside him now, peering over the side of the crib. She was clothed in flowing darkness. Her face was white and indistinct, her eyes fierce blue points in a fathomless black. "Peace, boy." Her voice was like the wind howling in the trees. "This is a gift, not an attack. The King's Mead gave you the ability to see. But what we need most urgently is for you to listen."

He couldn't take a step or cry out, but getting at his phone was a small, sideways motion. He thumbed it to life, and started to record.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Listening."

She smiled. It was ghastly. "Suit yourself," she said. "My name is Ulla." 

He stretched out a cautious hand to her. If he moved slowly, he was okay. Her hand was cold, her grip firm but not forceful. "Vegard."

"I know." She turned away from him, back to the sleeping baby. "She's very precious."

"Yes," Vegard agreed stonily. "What are you?"

"A Mareritt."

It was an effort to speak slowly and calmly. "I don't want you near her."

The Mareritt only looked amused. She never took her eyes off Emma. "I won't harm her, boy. I won't even feed off her, not now."

"Not ever!" Vegard said, making his voice fierce.

She turned those amused black eyes to his. "Have you ever considered what it means to feed off the terror of dreamers?"

"No," he admitted. "Why would I? It shouldn't even be possible, none of this is possible."

"Nevertheless," she said. And then: "What does it mean to feed off anything? If you have, say, four apples, and I feed off them, do you still have four apples?"

Vegard thought he understood the gist of the argument. For himself, it would have convinced him, but for Emma, he kept his mouth stubbornly shut.

The nightmare leaned close. "Let's be clear about something: I don't make terror. Humans produce it in alarming quantities all on your own. What I do is express it. And then, yes, I drink it, because it is food to me and poison to you." She left the side of the crib, and started pacing, trailing streamers of darkness. "Maybe this will make it clearer. There are sixteen Mareritt working in Norway, for not quite five million people. There are two for America's three hundred million people."

The statistic made Vegard forget his outrage. "What, that's the reason for--?" He fluttered his hand next to his temple.

She made her own waving-away gesture. "It's complicated. More complicated than that. But it's certainly a contributing factor."

He looked down at his sleeping daughter, and up at the horror that had come to rest in the middle of the room. "You're saying you're one of the good guys, then."

Her shoulders sagged a little, and she gave him a look of mingled exhaustion and reproach. 

"What?"

She gestured at the rocking chair that Helene used for nursing, a chair that they'd received from a friend's grandmother. The refinishing had been mostly Helene's work. "No, it's okay," Vegard said, feeling ridiculous. "You take it."

Immediately he regretted it, watching as she settled into a chair reserved for the two people he treasured most in the world, but she didn't seem out of place there. Neither did she seem quite so horrific. She hadn't changed, but he was getting used to her. 

Ulla the Mareritt leaned forward. Her voice was gentle. "You've stumbled into--Kitsune _deposited you_ into--a very delicate situation, that your presence makes more delicate. Do you understand this?"

Vegard thought of the gnomes, of the web of friendship and obligation that they'd blundered into with their silly song. "A little."

"Good answer," she said, rocking back and forth. "The King's Mead will let you see the Underjordiske from Solstice to Solstice. Given who and what you are, it is very likely that in the very near future, you and your brother will be asked to choose a side."

"And you're here to make sure I choose the right one, is that it?"

She shook her head. "I'm not going to tell you what to choose. I'm not going to tell you I'm a good guy. I am here to beg you to listen carefully, and think deeply, before you let people sort the world into sides for you. Listen and think. Not just to the people trying to force you to do the choosing, but everyone. And then decide."

He stared into the flames of her eyes. It seemed like a reasonable request. "And what happens if I refuse?"

She shrugged. "If you refuse to listen and think? You'll be perfectly all right. Things will likely get a little worse, on balance, for the Underjordiske. But we've braved far worse in our day, and anyway, in six months you won't even have to hear about the consequences. Nevertheless, I have come to you to ask."

Vegard nodded slowly. He wanted to say that he saw, but he suspected that her point was that he really didn't. "If that's all you want me to do," he said, "I think I can promise that."

She smiled at him. It wasn't so bad, really, when you got used to her. It was a kind smile. "Thank you. You might have just made your life a little less tidy, but it's mostly temporary, and not without its compensations. Can I offer you a bit of fortification for the months to come?"

He thought of Lady Thorne's words, weighed them against what he'd seen of Ulla. "Please," he said. "I'd be grateful."

She rose from the chair, and joined him at the side of the crib. Together they smiled down at Emma, still fast asleep, the blanket clutched in one tiny fist. And then with cool fingers Ulla brushed Vegard's curls from his forehead, and kissed his temple, and drank his terror. 

The paralysis broke, and he surged awake with a shout. 

"Vegard?" Bård said sleepily, from the next bed.

By the light filtering in from the streetlights, Vegard surveyed the two beds, the desk, the small television stand. He was in Stavanger, with Bård. "Sorry," he panted. "Nightmare."

He lay back, willing his heartbeat to slow down. But when he groped at the dissipating shreds of the dream, he couldn't remember anything scary. Only Emma, sleeping sweetly in her little crib as he stood over her, and a gentle voice telling him important things that he couldn't quite remember. 

Vegard rolled over to go back to sleep, and saw a bit of light where none should be. His phone was on the pillow next to him, recording. Intrigued, he stopped it, and played it back. 

The screen showed him his own face, eyes closed, and his clumsy sleeping hands fumbling with the phone. His eyes darted back and forth behind closed lids. Sometimes his lips parted in a look of trepidation; sometimes they curled into a smile. Twice, they shaped words. 

The second time, he rewound the recording, and tried to make out what he was saying. It took him a couple of tries. When he thought he had it, he went back to the first word. 

These deciphered, he turned the phone off. Before he drifted off to a sleep this time devoid of dreams, he whispered the words to himself once more.

_Underjordiske._

_Listen._


	6. VEIVISERLÆRD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding the way / All the answers (now, what were the questions?) / Dark matters / Principles of magical lightbending / A better lens

It had rained the night before, but on this August morning the sky was cloudless, and the day promised to be hot. The E39 to Kristiansand was a golden ribbon in the morning sun, while mist pooled in the valleys. 

Bård understood that Vegard was excited about the new house and their impending visit to the university. He bore it as long as he could, but after listening to his older brother talk for half an hour about thermal inversions, Bård exploded, "God, Vegard, if you love the weather so much, why don't you just marry it?"

Vegard looked hurt for a moment, and his hand drifted momentarily over his mouth, but he recovered quickly. "We had a brief, stormy relationship. We even talked about making little weather babies." 

"Did she dump you when she realized they'd have a terminal case of frizz?"

Vegard shook his head in mock sorrow. "On the third date, she took me back to her place and held me against her nice warm front. Everything was going great until I got undressed." He put on his forlorn face. "The police arrested me, and I'm not allowed back in that park." 

"Write that down," Ulf said.

"Not yet," Bård countered. "It needs work." 

"It needs work," Vegard concurred.

They hit Kristiansand at eleven in the morning. According to Lady Thorne, the NUA campus was on the island of Alverøya, just south of Tresse. They found parking by the quay, and walked down to the park. Just as Lady Thorne had promised, there was the island, just off the pier, with the white arch of a footbridge leading to it. "Guess they don't want motorized traffic," Bård said.

"I didn't want to say anything in case I was missing something, but I didn't think there was another island here, and I've never heard of Alverøya," Nico said. "I think she meant _Av_ erøya, by Kristian _sund_. Should we go back and see if we can move up our appointment, or do you want to just kick around here for a few hours?" 

"Here," Vegard said. "I want to visit the library, at minimum. Maybe we can find someone who will talk to us, too."

"Library?" 

"Probably the big white building," Bård said. "It has that library look to it."

"Are you...?" Nico turned to Knut and Ulf. "Are they...?" Vegard raised an eyebrow at Bård, and walked to the end of the pier, to the footbridge. Nico turned to Bård. "Where's he going?"

"To the library," Bård said.

Vegard stepped onto the footbridge. Bård watched him. The crew watched Bård.

Ulf turned to him, with the air of someone who had been waiting for a long time. "So, did your brother say when he was going to be back?"

Bård was about to give him a snappy answer when he realized what was going on. "Vegard and I got the King's Mead. You didn't. Nico, come with me."

"Why me?"

"In case I'm wrong, you're the only one without any equipment." Bård led him to the footbridge. "Okay," he said. "Take my hand, and you'll have to trust me a little."

"At the water's edge? Are you kidding?"

"Not right there, no." Bård looked up. Vegard was standing just over the water. He had taken off his field cap and was waving it. 

"I have a serious case of the heebie-jeebies," Nico said. 

"That's probably a security feature," Vegard called down.

"Did you hear that?" Bård asked.

Nico jumped. "Hear what? I swear, if you guys are screwing with me..."

"Not this time," Bård said. "It's just Vegard. He says it's the glamour." He held out a hand, and Nico took it warily. "All right. I don't know what your eyes are going to tell you, but trust me." Bård stepped onto the bridge. 

Nico's eyes got large. "How are you doing that?"

"You're on a bridge," Vegard called. "It's perfectly solid." He jumped up and down, to illustrate, and then did a little dance.

"He can't hear you," Bård said.

"Yes I can," Nico countered. "I can hear him, but not..." He closed his eyes and stepped up, stumbling a little, until he stood on the first step with Bård. " _Now_ I can see you. You're doing the Charleston." He turned back to the crew. "Guys, come on over. It's weird, but it's safe." Ulf and Knut didn't seem to register that he'd said anything. Nico sighed, and stepped down again. "Guys, come over here!"

They started over. "Nico, we didn't even see you pass us," Ulf said. "Did you find the boys?"

It took a further twenty minutes to get Ulf and Knut onto the footbridge. The bridge's invisibility and the uneasy feeling its proximity gave them were bad enough; worse was the effect that it had on memories. Whenever one person made it onto the bridge, the others would be convinced that they simply hadn't seen that person in awhile. When Nico went back to get them, he forgot where he'd been, and claimed to have been wandering around the park looking for Bård and Vegard. Bård had to run back to stop them from all leaving together to look. Even explaining didn't help. Eventually Vegard came back down, borrowed the camera from Ulf, and filmed himself climbing the footbridge. The footage was surreal--the bridge didn't really show up as a physical structure--but it at least provided hard proof that it was no joke, and in the end that was enough to get them to put one foot on the first step, which of course was enough to get them the rest of the way up and across. 

All this time, of course, the bridge was in use. Students--the overwhelming majority of them blond, with pointed ears--walked back and forth carrying books and backpacks, casting curious looks at the humans gathered at the foot of the bridge, but saying nothing. A few people who might have been professors or grad students passed by too, looking harried and clutching messenger bags and reusable coffee mugs. The crew didn't notice them properly until they were on the bridge themselves.

From there, though, it was only a short walk to the island. It was quite flat, with only a few artfully placed trees. The rest was all lawns and courtyards and elegant buildings. "They should really have a signpost or something,” Bård said, peering around. 

"Bad design,” Vegard grumped, and set off in the direction of what they’d conjectured was the library. He had gotten a bit impatient, waiting for the crew. 

The white building did prove to be the library, and they made it as far as the lobby, which had a café, a fountain, and a dour-looking elf at a desk. The only way into the library proper was past her. 

"Student cards?” the elf said as they approached.

"We’re just visiting,” Vegard said. 

"There’s no visitor access to the library,” she said. With a glance at the cameras, she added, " _Especially_ if you’re filming.”

"We can go away,” Ulf said, indicating himself and Knut and Nico.

" _They_ ,” she said, indicating Bård and Vegard, "still can’t come in without student cards. Unless you have a sponsor.” She leaned forward. "Do you have a sponsor?”

"They’re with me,” a voice said from behind them.

"Oh?” The librarian looked over their shoulders. "Oh!”

A slight, dark, bespectacled young man with a ponytail and a lot of earrings in his pointed ears eased his way between Bård and Vegard. "I’ll sign you in. Remind me which of you is which, again?”

Vegard pointed. "He’s Bård, I’m Vegard.”

"Like twins, they are,” the librarian said wryly as she wrote their names and the other signed for them. His name appeared to be Kai. Bård and Vegard made hasty arrangements to meet at the café when they were done.

Away from the desk, in the library itself, Bård said to the young man, "Thanks for that.”

"Yes, thanks,” Vegard added.

"I don’t like that the stacks are closed,” their sponsor said. "I’m Kai, by the way.”

The brothers introduced themselves again, in hushed voices. "Can we thank you with a cup of coffee on our way out?” Bård asked.

Kai checked his watch. "That would be awesome. Would two hours work for you? I’ll be ready for a break by then.”

"Can you do what you have to do in two hours?” Bård asked Vegard. 

"I think so.” Vegard bobbed his head at Kai, and then headed straight for the computers. 

An hour and a half later, Bård went back past the elf at the desk, bored out of his skull. He’d meant to help, to maximize their two hours, but he couldn’t think where to start. Everything was laid out differently, and he’d wandered the stacks aimlessly, scanning the titles of works such as _KR-Value Significance in Imposed Shapechanging: An Introduction_ and _Proceedings of the 72nd Symposium on Ethics in Blood Magic_ and _New Problems in Wyvern Cladography_. Bård had picked up _The Golden Cup and The Silver Branch: Symbolism in Post-Emergence Fey Poetry, 1965-1974: A Collection of Essays_ , read a single paragraph from somewhere in the middle, and put it back down again. Clearly he was not going to be any help here.

He saw a mop of black curls at a group table at the café, and made a beeline for a free seat before he registered that of course Vegard wouldn't be back yet, and the curls actually belonged to a young woman, and her companions were not his crew, but a group of students. He tried to turn aside, but they waved him over.

"Sorry,” he said, "I thought you were somebody else.”

A lios alfr with glasses said, "That's all right. Listen, do you have five minutes?”

"More like half an hour,” Bård told him.

"Perfect.” The woman with the curls shoved her chair aside to make room for him, and gave him a brilliant smile. "I'm Janna.”

The elf with glasses introduced himself as Lirikael Vinael. Next to him sat Aurindael, a massive broken-nosed lios alfr who looked like a football player. The thin lios alfr next to him introduced herself as Sylvania. 

"I'm Bård,” he told them, and each of them shook his hand, Janna unreservedly, the others a little warily he thought.

"We're the Preservation Club,” Lirikael told him.

"Excellent,” Bård said. "What do you preserve?” 

"Everything, we hope,” Sylvania said. 

"We're here because the svartalfar are making a bid to seize the government,” Lirikael explained. "Folks like Janna are all right, Janna is perfectly wonderful and we're lucky to have her.” Janna beamed at him, and he beamed back. "But the ones poised to take over are intent on smashing everything we've built up, seven thousand years of civilization. They hate the lios alfar, they hate humans, and most of all they hate each other.”

Janna turned her smile to Bård. "I love my people, but I don't love what we've become, huddled in the darkness hurling venom at the people in power. I chose to better myself and go to university, so I know it's possible. We just have to be taught that it's a better path than tunnel life, breeding like rats and selling dark spells.”

"So, tell us about yourself, Bård,” Sylvania said. 

"Er...I'm a human, I'm twenty-five, I have two kids, and I don't actually go to this school. I don't know if I should be here."

"Of course you should," Lirikael said. "If the svartalfar take power, your family could be in danger. You've heard those stories about elves stealing human children. Look at me, just look at me. Do you think _I_ would ever steal a child?"

Janna looked unhappy, and a trifle nauseous. "It was a long time ago. There was a famine in the tunnels."

"There would be again," Lirikael said. "They have no concept of sustainability. Everything is right in the moment. And everything is politics. No regard for cold hard facts, for the way the world is. It would be disaster, for the entire country."

"Dark matter, five o'clock," Aurindael said, staring straight ahead. It was the first thing he'd said.

Everyone else got really quiet. Bård turned and saw Vegard, staring. His shoulders were hunched, his hands were shoved in his pockets, and his lips were pressed together. "Oh!" Bård said. "That's my brother. He's the one I was supposed to meet." He got to his feet and stuck out a hand, but only Janna took it; the others were eyeing him as if he'd betrayed them somehow. "Good to meet you all. Good luck with, ah, not having a disaster."

 _Now_ he saw the table that had the crew at it--they hailed him, laughing--and headed over, motioning to Vegard to join them. He checked his watch. Technically, Vegard was fifteen minutes early. He wouldn't have been late, but if two hours was all they had, Bård would expect him to use it. Instead, Vegard stumped over to an available chair, hooked it out with a neat motion of his heel, and dropped into it with a little huff of frustration. "It's...it's _nonsensical_ in there," he raged. "Everything is all over the place, I had to spread my search across seven floors, and I got twelve books, eight of which I couldn't use at all, and by the time I had it whittled down to the four I _could_ use, I had half an hour left. I read enough of one to satisfy myself that there was no way I could get anything useful from it in the time that I had, and then I just gave up. We'd have to be here for weeks, Bård, and I still don't think I would know anything. I might have a better idea of the right questions to ask, but it's all so-and-so says this and such-and-such adds that but recent evidence suggests this." 

"It probably makes perfect sense to the people who grew up with it," Bård offered. "I know what Lady Thorne said, but...the kind of information that it is, it's like, up here--" He put a hand flat, above eye level. "And we need it down here." He rested his hand somewhere around ankle level. 

Kai chose that moment to join them. "Hi, guys. Can I take you up on that coffee?"

"Sure," Bård said. He peeked at the books under Kai's arm. "What have you got?"

" _The Physics of Glamour, Volume 4_ , _Principles of Magical Lightbending_ , and...oh, right, _Localized Spell Reversals: A Theoretical Reader_. Did you two find what you were looking for?"

The brothers exchanged a look. Finally, Bård said, "I never thought magic could be so boring!"

Kai laughed with real delight. "Oh dear...oh dear, I'm sorry."

"We have an awful lot of questions," Vegard said, "and the library wasn't as good at answering them as we thought it would be. Or..." He waved his hands in momentary frustration. "It's like I'm asking it how my car works, and it is giving me excellent information on combustion and ignition and exothermic power and physics, and I know how important all of that is, but first and foremost I need to know how to drive."

Bård went up and bought a round of coffee for Kai and the crew; hot chocolate for Vegard, and hot chocolate made with soy milk and a shot of raspberry for himself. When he got back, Knut was dangling the boom mic over Kai's head, and Ulf was filming him as he explained, "The lios alfar are from the Bright Court, which was the seat of power until the establishment of the Samkoma in 1970. More than eighty percent of the Samkoma still have Bright Court affiliations. Ah, thanks, Bård. They don't consider themselves Underjordiske, because being beyond the sight and the ken of humans was their own choice."

"So basically the Underjordiske are everyone else that we can't normally see?" Vegard asked.

Kai shrugged. "Kind of. The svartalfar are divided on whether or not we should call ourselves Underjordiske. It boils down to whether you want to claim closer kinship with the lios alfar or with everyone else." 

"Which do you do?" Bård asked, manoeuvring into his chair with his hot chocolate.

"Depends," said Kai. His eyes were mild, but there was defiance in the set of his shoulders. "Both can be politically advantageous or disadvantageous in certain settings." His face went through several expressions in rapid succession as he glanced at someone over their shoulders. Then he raised a hand in greeting. "Vegard, Bård, I'd like you to meet Dr. Athena Jarinael."

The brothers turned to see a tall, slim blonde woman with pointed ears standing by the table. "Hello," she said, extending her hand to each brother in turn. "Surely you have last names as well?"

"Ylvisåker," Bård said. 

She lifted her chin as if this answered everything. "Ahh. Scholarship, or...?"

"They're humans," Kai said. "They're filming a television program."

"Oh," she said. "Well, then, you should know that Kai is one of our star students in the Physics Department. We're very proud of him."

"What kind of work is it?" Vegard asked. 

Dr. Jarinael smiled brilliantly. "Um. Well...I'm sure that Kai can explain it far better than I can."

"I'm working on a glamour filter for television cameras. Appropriately enough."

"Glamour filter?" Bård echoed.

Ulf and Nico and Knut exchanged looks. Ulf turned off the camera, and Knut drew in the boom mic. " _That's_ why we've had problems. Every single time."

"But it's always a different problem," Nico protested. 

"That's how glamour works," Kai said. "With mechanical eyes and ears, anyway. Actually, any kind of magic will create interference. You can even tell what kind of magic you're dealing with by the kind of interference it creates, and, um...Tireidiel? No, Randiel was the one who revolutionized the categorization of magic based on that interference. But glamour is a very specific kind of interference, deliberately generated, and that means that it's possible to cancel it out." He held up the physics book. "It's all in here."

Vegard took the book eagerly, and started paging through. His eager expression didn't last, though, and soon he handed it back, looking defeated.

"Er, well, Kai, it was great to see you," Dr. Jarinael said, backing out of the conversation and waving her briefcase at him. "Stay bright!"

"Stay bright," Kai called, not sounding particularly enthused. He glowered fiercely into his coffee.

"What's wrong?” Bård asked. 

Kai shook his head. Then he gazed deep into his coffee for a moment, and said, "Would you like a fix for your technical problems? I have a prototype filter in my office that you can use. Come up with me, and I'll show you.” He smiled at the crew. "I'll have them back down in just a sec."

They went from the library lobby through a connecting corridor to another building. In the elevator, Bård again ventured, "What's wrong? What happened down there?"

Kai answered with a tight little shake of his head. "It doesn't matter." The doors opened, and he looked up and down the hall before motioning them out. The corridor was lined with doors with numbers and nameplates. Around a corner, he slipped a key into a lock. The nameplate was more of a list, actually, and the name "Kai Fjelltopp" was the fifth or sixth one down--amid, Bård noticed, a lot of names ending in "-el." 

The room was more of a big closet, really. There was enough space for a desk, three chairs, a wall of sagging bookshelves, and a filing cabinet. Where a window would normally be was a blackboard. On this had been drawn curtains and a crude sun, with an ocean view. The ocean contained a mermaid, a giant squid waving a friendly tentacle, and what looked like a whale with a forest on its back. 

"It doesn't matter..." Kai said again, and shook himself. He took a seat on the surface of his desk. His gaze drifted from Bård to Vegard and back. "Do you want to know? I mean, do you _really_ want to know? 'Cause I don't want to dump on you if you're just being polite, and you of all people don't deserve to be dumped on, but I figure you two are safer ears than ninety-nine point five percent of this campus, and by great Odin's hallowed epididymis I am so ready to dump." 

"Does it matter that we won't know what you're talking about?" Vegard asked. 

Kai flashed him a wan smile. "That's one of the things that makes you so safe."

"Go ahead, then," the brothers said, nearly in unison.

"'Stay bright,'" he spat. "It doesn't matter that my work is revolutionary," he said, "or that the spell-bending crystals Indrael and I developed have literally thousands of other applications. At the core of it, what matters is that I'm still their token svartalfr. I worked like a dog for my grant, and they get to put me on their brochures as proof to the lios alfar that they're all so enlightened and proof to the svartalfar that the only reason two thirds of us live in poverty is that we don't all work as hard as I do, and they _still_ tell me, 'Stay bright.' Do you have any idea? _Any idea_?"

"None," Bård admitted.

"I've seen some of the lios alfar saying it to each other," Vegard observed.

"It's different when they say it to each other," Kai said. "It's not great, I mean, it still means, 'Don't go dark.' I used to tell myself that was their way of accepting me, that it was their sign that they just saw Kai the elf, and didn't care if I was lios or svart. But the thing is, I _am_ dark, and they never let me forget it."

"Maybe they mean, like, 'dark' magic?" Bård said, making scare-quotes in the air with his fingers. 

"That I've never even touched," Kai said. "Lios alfar come to me all the time looking for potions, or asking questions about little sacrifices. I don't know about any of those things. You know what? They can read up on them; they can do research on blood spells, or seals, or neural bindings, and it's research. But if I'm even in that section of the library--and I have to be sometimes, because the spell-benders use a DNA key--I look over and there's always a librarian right there, like _right_ there. Sometimes they just plant themselves at the head of the aisle. I have to keep my nose twice as clean and work twice as hard, and people still tease me about my earrings, and tell me to stay bright, and brag about me being the star pupil without remembering a thing about my work." He sighed. "When I came here ten years ago, I was happy and grateful, and I honestly believed that I had just worked harder than the folks down in the tunnels, and anyone who doubted it had no concept of personal responsibility. Now...the only reason I keep smiling for them is because I know the rules of the game, and the rules say that if I'm not a well behaved token, I'm just another bloody savage."

Silence followed. Kai looked up, his expression pained, as if he worried he'd said too much. Vegard reached out and awkwardly patted his arm.

"I understood none of that," Bård confessed.

"No," Vegard said. He kept patting Kai's arm, though.

Kai laughed, and covered Vegard's hand with his own for a moment. "Thank you for listening, though. It felt good to get that out. I've never actually said it aloud to anyone. Now let's find you that filter." He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the filing cabinet, but then he settled back and put the key in his pocket, looking thoughtful and a little lost. "I might have to call my family, you know. It'll hurt to tell them they were right. But I miss them. I miss my brothers and sisters."

"How many of you are there?" Bård asked.

"Thirteen," Kai said, turning to face them, again with a touch of defiance in his voice.

"My god," Bård said.

"Your mom must be a saint," Vegard added.

Kai yanked the filing cabinet open and started riffling through it. He flashed a quizzical look over his shoulder. "Why a saint?"

"Well...thirteen!"

"Huh!" Kai said, as if this had never occurred to him before. "I'll have to tell them that one." He reached in, and pulled out an unvarnished birch box. "And hey presto, a prototype glamour filter." He opened it up. Wrapped in white silk was a pale golden prism. Bård wasn't sure if the shifting patterns inside were fluid, or a property of the crystal itself.

"Can we bring it to our cameraman to try?" Vegard asked.

"You can have it," Kai said, rewrapping it and handing him the box. "I'm already two generations past this one. I've managed to correct the colour most of the way, make it thinner, and fix some small problems with image fidelity. And the newest one is an attachment that you can add to a standard-sized camera lens. For this one you'll have to find some way to stick it on."

"Thank you," Vegard said.

"Yes, thanks." As an afterthought, Bård added, "Is the school going to mind that you did this for a couple of humans?"

Kai shrugged. "They might do. As you may or may not have gathered, I'm in no mood to care. It'll be helpful for me to know how it works for humans, though, so this is research. I'll give you my e-mail address." He looked around the room, and finally pulled a page from a 1994 wall calendar and started scribbling. 

"Oh hey," Vegard said suddenly. "We met her." He was pointing at a book on the shelf. Sure enough, Bård recognized the name on the spine.

"You met Gisela Freidag?" Kai said, handing Bård the address. "Dude! She's my hero. Getting the SULA Act passed would change everything. Not that the Bright Court will ever let it through. I’m sorry, that’s bloody cynical of me. But I’m in a bloody cynical mood."

"We didn't know who she was though. We met her a couple of months ago, in a club in Oslo."

Kai's eyes got big. "Skygge?"

"Sounds right," Vegard said. 

"Y'know, it didn't make the mainstream news, but someone tried to assassinate her there."

The brothers exchanged a glance. "We were there," Bård said. "We..."

"It was very weird," Vegard said, shaking his head slowly. 

Kai gave them a speculative look, a slow smile spreading over his face. Bård hadn't noticed before that his canine teeth were pointed. "I think," Kai said, "that of all the humans in Norway, I might have just given the filter to the right ones."

***

On the outside paths, when Bård and Vegard and the crew were on the way back to the mainland, they ran into Dr. Jarinael again. "Oh, thank goodness," she said.

"'Thank goodness'?" Vegard echoed.

"Well, I heard you went up to Kai's office. He's a very nice boy, doesn't touch dark magic, honestly wouldn't hurt a fly, but he's under a lot of pressure and we worry about him sometimes." 

"Naturally," Bård said.

"He was telling us about his project," Vegard said. 

"I see. You were able to make sense of it?”

"Not really,” Bård admitted.

"I had trouble understanding in the moment,” Vegard said, "but now that I've had time to mull it over, some things are getting clearer.”

They said their goodbyes, and headed towards the footbridge. Behind them, Doctor Athena Jarinael let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

***

Kai was right: they would have to rig something to hold the filter over the camera lens, because as it was, Vegard had to stand and hold it in place while Bård did a little test piece, talking about the island and the university and the bridge. When they were back on the mainland, Ulf played the footage back, and let out a whoop. It had worked! Everything was a funny colour, and the elves hurt a little to look at, but they showed up.

They had enough time to check in at the hotel and recharge the camera battery before their afternoon appointment, but then Vegard got a call on the Massive Cell Phone of Doom: the person they were supposed to meet was in the hospital. It was bad news. The weather was starting to turn too, with clouds drifting in and a chilly wind blowing through. The mood was still light, though, and after a bit of tromping around the quay, on Kirkegate they found a likely subject.


	7. DRAUGRMANNEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new type of fog / S.O.S / Extraordinary uses of Norwegian flora #4: the rose / Petrichor

"Anything?" Bård said, getting up on his elbows again. 

Vegard shifted his gaze to the water, and the harbour lights in the distance. "Nothing yet," he mumbled, running a hand along the side of his face. The wood of the dock, rough against his cheek, smelled of seaweed and fish. Curious, he turned a little, and put his tongue out. Salty. A little phosphorus. Which meant...oh. Ew. He rolled over, and spit into the ocean. 

"Are you throwing up?" Bård asked. 

"No."

He wasn't much of a drinker, but there hadn't been much else to do at the pub, and there had been a lot of encouragement. It had been grand until the boat they'd hired to take them back to the mainland didn't turn up, and storm clouds started rolling in. Now they were waiting, wearing trash bags over their clothes in preparation for the inevitable cloudburst. The crew had stayed sober, and were huddled together closer to shore, where the stone jetty offered more of a windbreak. For awhile they'd gone over the footage and tried to piece it into something, but the camera battery had died. Vegard didn't have high hopes; their subject had disappeared on them, and hours of footage of the brothers getting progressively more pie-eyed as they waited for him to return wasn't really good television. Still, the crew seemed in okay spirits--probably they'd been inured to this sort of thing by the large number of unfilmable wonders--and every so often the wind would blow a gust of laughter from them to the brothers. 

The September night was cool, but between his hoodie and the inherent tendency of alcohol to dilate blood vessels, bringing blood to the skin, Vegard was quite warm. The air felt nice on his face, until a chill made him roll onto his side and have another look at the water. "Bård?"

"Yeah?"

"Look. Fog."

Bård gave him a sweet drunken smile. "Vegard, I cannot begin to express how much I do not care about fog."

"I mean, look at it, though. It's weird."

It had come in suddenly across the water, wispy and white and surprisingly solid-looking, and it wasn't just creeping towards them; it was spilling, roiling, seething, putting out little tendrils and pulling itself forward on them, towards the dock. 

"I feel like we should get up," Bård said. 

"Me too," Vegard said. Pushing himself into a sitting position was far more complicated than he remembered, and it made him unspeakably dizzy. For a moment he thought he might throw up, but he sat still and took very deep breaths until the nausea passed.

Then the smell hit him, a stench of seaweed and fish and decay, and he rolled over and vomited over the side of the dock. Not far from him, he heard Bård doing the same as the fog and the cold enveloped them. 

He wasn't sure what made him reach back, with the hand that wasn't clutching the dock for support, and feel for his brother, but it seemed like Bård had had the same idea, because he didn't have to reach far before a warm hand closed on his own. The impulse probably saved their lives. A few seconds later, Vegard felt a wave of vertigo. He would have tumbled right off the side if he'd been alone. He heard Bård moan, and the grip on his hand tightened. And pulled. "Vegard!" Bård cried.

"Something's wrong," Vegard slurred. He tried to call to the crew, but the fog swallowed his voice, made it flat and thin. That wasn't how it was supposed to work; sounds were supposed to carry better in fog, because the water vapour conducted sound better than regular air, and sound waves could bounce between it and the ground, extending their range. "This isn't...this isn't..." 

"Vegard? Don't let go." Bård's voice was a whimper. 

Vegard had no intention of letting go, but his hand was all he could feel, now. The cold had seeped into his bones. The water was utterly calm. Everything was a featureless grey. He tried to picture the world beyond the fog: the jetty, the storm, the crew, the mountains, city lights. Airplanes, cheesecake, old enamel signs. He could picture all of those things, he could long for them, but he was suddenly having trouble believing in them. There was only the fog and the cold. And, he reminded himself as fingers tightened on his own, his brother. 

And somewhere to his left--noises. The drip and chuckle of water. A sound that could have been oars against a hull, but was somehow muted, mushy. He entertained no hope that this was the boat that they'd arranged to pick them up. Nothing that came to get them in this fog meant them any good at all. 

He tried to turn his head. His neck muscles wouldn't obey. Instead, he swivelled his eyes as far to the side as he could. It made his lateral rectus muscles ache furiously, but he could just make out the prow of a boat, pitted and wormy and hanging with horned wrack and strands of kelp. Correction--it was the prow of _half_ a boat, impossibly afloat, rocking gently. Standing inside was a figure shrouded in a navy blue Sou'wester. It held a coil of rotting rope. 

Vegard tried to call to Bård. He couldn't produce so much as a squeak. 

The thing in the oilskin drew closer. He didn't have to strain to see it anymore. The rotten rope slithered over one of the posts on the dock. 

Couldn't move. Couldn't scream. Could he grab his phone?

Of course he couldn't. He couldn't move a muscle. Whatever had made him think that?

There was something there, though, and he tried to pick it apart. Why had he tried to go for his phone?

Hang on--there was one link he could use. Huginn’s eyes. He found Bård in the back of his mind, also paralyzed, also terrified. Was the phone a metaphor for their connection? He didn't think his brain would have come up with something like that; he had never considered himself much of a figurative thinker. 

: _Like a nightmare,_ : Bård thought at him, a small voice in the silence.

: _Genius!_ : Vegard fired back. He felt a thread of hurt from Bård. : _No, really. Do what I do._ :

He gave himself over to the terror he'd been holding at bay, letting it wash over him. It helped when the half-boat bumped against the dock. And then he fought to rein it in again. He couldn't master it completely, but he was able to modulate it a little. Now:

He freed it again, just for a moment, and reined it in. Freed it, reined it in. Freed it, reined it in. 

Freed it again, for a longer moment, three times.

Freed it for a short moment, three times. Imagining it as a silent scream helped him control it.

Short-short-short; long-long-long; short-short-short.

Bård was slower on the uptake than he expected--or maybe he just had more trouble modulating--but eventually he picked it up, and doubled the signal strength. Short-short-short; long-long-long; short-short-short.

SOS. 

Vegard didn't know what he expected to happen; only that they could do one thing, and they were doing it. 

SOS.

He was rewarded by a darkening of the fog, to black. The thing in the oilskin raised its head, looking all around it. Bård lost himself to panic, but Vegard's own fear abated considerably. Help had arrived. 

A single pink rose petal fluttered down from the sky, and landed on the bridge of his nose.

For a single, awful moment, he had no idea what it meant. A puzzle? A talisman? What did roses mean? 

He felt its softness on his skin, and if he closed one eye, he could just see the pinkness of it, and he understood: Emma. 

So it wasn't rescue. It was a last gift, from the world beyond the dock: the memory of his sweet, happy, snuggly daughter, and her beautiful, kind mother. Vegard was cold, so cold, but his tears were hot enough to burn. He had warm memories to take into the cold grey.

The thing in the oilskin halted above them. It lowered itself to a crouch. Vegard could hear its bones creaking. Its face was a horror. He wouldn't think of that. He would think of Emma. 

The thing stretched out a hand encased in a mould-spotted red glove. If it touched him, Vegard thought, his mind would snap like a guitar string. Then it did touch him, a fingertip brushing his cheek, and he drew in a choked little gasp. The touch was cold and slimy, but gentle. When the fingertip pulled way, the droplet of salt water on it had nothing to do with the ocean. It seemed to be eating a hole in the rubber. 

The thing said, in a voice that sounded like waves crashing against the rocks, "What are their names?"

It was Bård who found his voice first. "Sofie and Nora."

"Emma," Vegard said.

It looked away from them. "I had a little Nora too. The fever carried her off when she was seven. When I...when I came here, I had four alive. Henrik, Margit, Mikael, and Tilda. And my wife. Jenny. And my mum."

"What happened?" Vegard asked.

"What always happens. A freak storm blew up. This isn't such a bad existence, when you get used to it, but leaving them is a thing that I will regret forever."

"I...can imagine," Bård said.

"Is there anyone we could contact for you?" Vegard asked.

With a crunch of bone and a wet slapping sound, it settled down to sit on the dock. "You're listening to an old man. That's kindness enough. It's been a very long time. My children are dead. My grandchildren are grown, and never knew me. You're so young, I thought, probably, these days, no attachments, just a thirst for adventure... My shipmates all moved on, mostly to warmer places where they have a choice of shapes, but this is where I grew up. My heart is here. It just gets a bit lonely between revels. I don't exactly get on with everyone down there. Nevertheless, I don't need you as badly as your families do." 

Vegard found that he could sit up. He and Bård drew together, shivering, as close to the middle of the dock as they could get. 

The draugr turned its head one hundred and eighty degrees to look at them. "This is what you can do for me: go back and have good lives. Be good fathers and husbands. Be grateful for, and gracious with, the chances you are given." 

"We will," Bård said, in a rush.

"Yes," Vegard agreed. "Thank you."

The draugr whistled, a high, thin, eerie note, and the half-boat butted up against the dock like a dog. The Sou'wester changed shape, and its occupant didn't so much climb into the boat as pour itself in and then draw itself up to its full height. Just before the boat disappeared into the mist, the draugr swivelled its head again, and lifted a hand. Bård and Vegard scrambled to their feet and waved back. They watched the fog tumble and swirl away with it, leaving them in the clean, sane September night.

The air was warm and wet, and smelled of ozone and petrichor. The Sunnmøre Alps loomed in the background; in the foreground were the jetty and gently bobbing boats and harbour lights. Vegard allowed himself to think that he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. 

Then Bård knelt on the deck, and stood again with a rose petal balanced on one fingertip, and Vegard stood corrected.

Bård put his free arm around Vegard's shoulders, and Vegard put an arm around Bård, and they walked back to land, leaning on each other, still shaking a little. Vegard didn't know if Bård noticed when the surface of the dock went from clammy to slick beneath their feet, but neither of them said anything, even when they slid a little on the gangplank up to the shore, even when the gravel beneath their feet squelched.

Knut came running from one of the buildings. His khakis were damp from the thighs down. "There you are! We were starting to worry! How did you get past us?"

"Past you?" Bård echoed. 

"We did go back out for you when we saw you weren't with us. We wouldn't just leave you, but we thought you'd be right behind us."

"We were on the dock," Vegard said. 

"All that time? What, you just pulled your trashbags over your heads? And..." He walked around them. "Stood there, in a downpour?"

"What, did it rain?" Bård asked.

Knut burst into laughter. "You two! Let me guess, you put your clothes in the bags, put the bags on your heads, and stood out there naked. That's dedication. Come on. Let's get you inside." He took Bård's forearm. "Christ, you're freezing!" He laid a hand on Vegard's forehead, as if checking for fever. "Both of you! And pale as milk."

In short order, the inexplicably dry brothers were huddled in blankets in front of a Jøtul wood stove so ancient that Vegard couldn't distinguish the model, drinking warm cups of tea at the behest of the old couple who'd opened their home to the crew during the storm. Bård and Vegard agreed--with enthusiasm that the crew found a little bewildering--that it would be better to return over land, and just pick up the van tomorrow. One of their hosts started making phone calls to secure a car. The community was far too small for rentals, so he had to phone locals, and at this point he was getting people out of bed. 

While the man was apologizing to the recipient of his third call, Vegard turned to the woman. "Do you have a novel I can borrow? Something you're done with? I could leave it in the car when we return it."

She had just the thing, and went to get it. Bård poked him, and gave him a quizzical look. Vegard devoured books, but he much preferred nonfiction. 

The woman returned with something thick and dog-eared. "Here you go, love. It's got some salty bits, but if it makes you blush you can assure me you're going to skip them, and I'll pretend to believe you."

Vegard didn't blush. "I honestly, truly won't read them."

"Of course not, dear."

When she had turned away from him, he opened his wallet and selected the dog-eared business card of one of their subjects, an artist whose contact information was easily available online. He folded it, and held a hand out to Bård. With a sudden look of understanding, Bård slipped him the rose petal. He'd been keeping it under his watch band, and it was a little worse for the wear. Vegard took it with reverence and laid it on half of the card, and then folded the card over and tucked it into the novel, which in turn went into the pocket of his cargo pants. 

Ten minutes later, Nico went out to pick up keys and a vehicle, and within the half hour, they were on their way. Their subject from earlier in the morning, the one who couldn't bother to be interviewed, stayed on Nico's cell phone until four in the morning, guiding them on the winding roads through the Møre Mountains.


	8. VILLJENTE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little sister / The pep talk / The science of ice cream / Music lessons / The art of shamelessly using tampons

The E6 was a riot of fall colours, and the air smelled of leaf mould and wood smoke. They made Øyer by mid-afternoon, and when they checked into the hotel, Bård, who had been Skyping with Maria well into the previous night, promptly curled up on one of the beds and went to sleep. 

Vegard fiddled with his laptop for a little while, but then he slipped out and knocked on the door of the room the crew shared and asked if they needed anything from the store. They gave him a list, which he added to his own.

He had just finished loading the groceries into the van, and was getting in to drive back to the hotel, when in the mirror he saw a swarm of blond-haired children on a side street. There was something wrong with the way they were arrayed, and when he realized what it was, he climbed out of the van and ran for them. "No, no, no no no no no!” They scattered, leaving a single child on the ground--a little brown-haired girl in a torn, filthy, bloody white dress.

Vegard crouched down next to her. "Are you all right?" he asked, reaching out for her shoulder.

She shouted wordlessly at him, and hit out in his general direction until he reeled backwards.

"Leave her alone," a voice said in posh accents, and the tone was not protective, but dismissive. Vegard turned. One of the little blond girls, radiantly beautiful in a blue dress, stood nearby. The tips of her ears came to points. "She's just a stupid huldra. She's in love with Luraiel, and she thought he would love her back if she looked more like we do. But it just can't work. She's not like us. She can't even talk. I'm not being mean; that's just a fact. Oh. Are you going to _cry_? Honestly, it's just a huldra. That's how they are."

Vegard stared at her in openmouthed dismay for a full five seconds. Then he turned back to the brown-haired child, tears still standing in his eyes. She gazed back at him. He took a few steps towards her. The girl kept watching, wary but unmoving.

"Do you understand me?" he asked.

She nodded slowly.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I promise." Ever so slowly, he stretched out a hand. After a couple of false starts, she reached up with both hands and grabbed his forearm, steadying herself as she staggered to her feet.

She was barefoot. The back of her dress was covered in blood.

"Oh," he said. "Oh. Okay. Don't panic. I know what to do. Wait here, all right? I'll be right back."

He ran back into the store, and grabbed teen-sized tampons. But when he brought them to the checkout counter, his confidence wavered. This was not being a good boyfriend. And he wasn't exactly old enough to pass it off as being a good dad, was he? What if they thought he was some kind of pedophile? Shielding the box with his body, he put it down on the counter. "Um...forgot...for my little sister," he said with an awkward little laugh.

"What a good brother, going back for them like that," the cashier said. And Vegard felt like a miserable liar.

Nevertheless, he brought the box out for the huldra. He handed it to her, and then dove into the back of the van. "My shirts wouldn't come down enough," he said, "but my brother is taller, and happily he left his luggage for me to bring in." He rummaged around, and came up with one of Bård's dress shirts, and a clean pair of his boxer briefs. "It's not high fashion, but it should cover you up."

There was a pay toilet near the park, and he put in money for her. She disappeared with the tampons and the clothing. Vegard sat outside on the grass, sick at heart. He felt awful for the girl, and disgusted with the other children, and absurdly guilty for the little lie he'd told. Completely all right about Bård's clothes, though. That was something. 

The girl emerged about fifteen minutes later, wearing the shirt and the boxers. "You've got the shorts on backwards," he said helpfully, rising to his feet and dusting off his jeans. She only looked confused. 

As he approached her, he saw: sticking through the slit in the boxers was the stump of a tail. She had unwound the cotton from one of the tampons, and used the string to tie it over the end of the stump. 

"Jesus," he said softly. "Who did that to you?"

She compressed her lips, and pointed at her chest, shaking her head as if in anger at herself.

"I'm sorry," he said, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder. She looked at it warily, and he snatched it away. "Sorry. I was wrong about...about what I thought was happening. I've got a first aid kit at the van. I can put a better bandage on it, if you'd like."

He went to the van, and she followed him, so he got out the kit. She let him undo her work, bathe the wound in a little alcohol and put antibiotic ointment on it, use another tampon over top because that was really a stroke of brilliance, and wind gauze around the stump. 

"So," he said, "I don't know how much to believe, because she seemed kind of mean, but when the girl said that you don't talk..."

Her tail twitched, thumping the side of his hand gently. And he felt--besides a raw flash of pain that made him cry out--that _this_ was how she talked. That she had in effect silenced herself, reasoning that if the lios alfar still shut her out, nothing she could ever say would matter anyway.

"Oh, no, no," he said, his eyes filling with tears again. "That's not true, that's not right."

_Thump._

"No no, that's not what I meant. I didn't mean to...I mean...I believe you that it's terrible, and that they're terrible to you, and that...all that. But they...okay, they do make the rules. But they don't make the _rules_ rules." He was aware that he sounded ridiculous. "What I mean is, I've been able to live my whole life not knowing about them, not even caring."

_Thump._

"I know. But you're _you_. And that's something. Maybe not to them, but there are parts of life that the lios alfar don't touch. And, and you don't cut off bits of yourself to make yourself fit them, you don't make yourself _less_ ; you take the bits of yourself that they don't have, and you grow them. Like... I'm a bit of a nerd. I'm calibrated differently, so I'm not very good at being social with most people; I manage for a little while and then it all goes wrong somehow. So I went into comedy. I'm good at being funny, and then when I say something awkward, they think I'm being shocking on purpose and everyone laughs." He looked at her sad face, her enormous brown eyes. "Bloody hell. What kind of pep talk was that? I'm gonna be a terrible dad."

She shook her head, and offered him a small smile as she patted his hand. He managed a watery smile back, and then got her a paracet from the first aid kit. He showed her how to take it with a bottle of water. Then he took off his Colorado Elks jacket and offered it to her, but she waved it away emphatically.

"Aren't you cold?” he asked. 

She shook her head.

"Would it be bad if I took you to a hospital?" he asked.

The huldra responded with a solemn nod.

"All right. Is there a...do you...can I take you home?"

Another solemn nod.

He closed up the back of the van, and opened the passenger door for her. "All right. Hop in, and direct me. I'm sorry, I don't know how comfortable it will be. We, er, don't get a lot of tailed passengers."

She raised her eyebrows at him, and waved her stump.

"I'm not sure that makes it better," he said.

She climbed in. He had to help her with the seatbelt. Then he climbed in the other side, and turned the van on. She jumped as the engine roared to life, and looked all around her with apparent terror, but Vegard gave her an encouraging smile, and started to drive.

The sun was low in the sky. Earth's elliptical orbit was taking the planet closer to the sun, but the Northern Hemisphere was tilting away as the planet approached perihelion. There was a noticeable chill in the air now, and the wind made the leaves on the trees rattle like dead husks. So when he was driving through the village's main street, and saw an ice cream shop open, he braked--gently, so as not to jostle his passenger. "Would you like a cone?" he asked. "I'll buy."

She looked at him blankly. 

"Ice cream. Do you know ice cream?"

She motioned with a hand to her stump of a tail. Unsure of himself, Vegard moved his own hand within thumping distance of it but as far away from the wound as he could decently get. The light touch she gave him let him know that she'd heard of ice cream, but had never tasted it. 

"I'll get you some," he said, scrambling out of the van. "Wait here."

He returned with two chocolate cones. He'd spent a lot of time wondering about the flavour. Maybe vanilla would be better for a first taste, but he really wanted chocolate, and if their cones were different she might wonder why. He hoped he'd gotten it right. She stared at her cone, turning it this way and that, until he got into the driver's seat again and demonstrated how to eat an ice cream cone. Then she tasted hers, and the look of delight that she gave him made him sure that he'd done the right thing.

"It's basically the same process as making fudge," Vegard told her happily. "Only fudge of course uses hot syrup that forms sugar crystals at room temperature, and ice cream uses cold liquid that forms ice crystals as it freezes. The key in both cases is that you disrupt the crystallization process, so what you're left with is a suspension with a creamy texture." 

Outside of the village, she pointed to the mountain road. At the fourth switchback, she tugged his sleeve and thumped his hand. She would walk from here. And she was grateful for his help, and she hoped he was careful because he wasn't so bad for a human.

He pulled the van over, and helped her undo the seatbelt. Then he watched her gingerly get out of the seat, and slide down to the ground, wincing a little as the impact jarred her tail. She closed the door, gave one tiny shy wave, and started walking. 

"Wait!" he said, scrambling out and locking the van. "Do you know people? Do you have family here to take care of you?"

She gave him an emphatic nod.

"Then I'll walk you to them," he said. "What if you slipped or keeled over or something? I'll make sure you get home."

She nodded again, and they walked further up the slope, amid tall pines and Norway spruce. They passed a waterfall where a naked man sat playing a violin despite the chill, and a dozen small winged creatures hovered in a sunbeam, taking turns twisting and jerking in a way that Vegard found oddly familiar. He'd passed them and they were out of sight before he was able to place the motion: they were playing hacky-sack. 

They'd been walking for perhaps ten minutes when Vegard heard something crashing through the bush. He paused; the huldra lifted her head as if to sniff the air, and started to move faster. Vegard quickened to a jog to stay at her side.

A naked woman stood ahead of them on the hillside, shoulders tense, long brown hair haloed golden by the sun, tail switching back and forth.

"Hello?" Vegard said, suddenly shy. 

She looked at the girl for a long time, nostrils flaring. Then she advanced on him. He pasted a friendly, ingratiating smile on his face, and forced himself to stand still. Her tail came up hard and fast, and slapped him across the face.

"Ow!" he cried, backpedalling. He tripped over a branch and fell on his butt, and then one of her knees was on his chest. The next blow was with her fists. "Stop," he squawked. "I'm sorry I trespassed! She needed help! I'm going away, okay?" He wriggled out from under her, scrambled to his feet, and ran. 

As he staggered back down the hill, he had time to sort through the jumble of impressions that he'd gotten from her when she'd slapped him. Rage, at seeing her daughter clothed and tailless. She thought he'd done it--mutilated a child, maybe taken advantage of her. He saw himself through her eyes, smug and cocky and predatory, proud of himself for defiling a little girl. Now it made perfect sense. He would hate the man she thought he was, too.

He was beginning to wonder if he was going in the right direction when he heard flowing water, and followed it to a stream that took him to the waterfall he'd seen on the way up. When Vegard approached, pinching his nostrils shut to stop the bleeding, the naked violinist stopped playing. The sound of the waterfall stopped. The water continued to fall in silence. "That was kindly done," the violinist said.

"Are you being sarcastic?" Vegard asked. 

"No, I'm really not. It doesn't look like it turned out well, and I suppose I should have warned you that the hulderfolk don't take well to intruders..."

"I'm not sure it would have made a difference," Vegard said. "I couldn't just leave her."

"Kindly done, as I said," the man said. "Sit awhile. You're bleeding."

Vegard found a dry stone at the edge of the pool, and sat. The naked stranger started playing again, and the sound of water flowing spread through the forest. "Aren't you cold?" Vegard asked him.

"No," the naked man said. "Like the hulderfolk, I'm pretty inured to the cold. I'll go underground for the winter, but right now is just fine. You wouldn't be in the market to learn the violin, would you?"

"Wha-what?"

"I teach violin. Normally, as a fossegrimm I ask for a little something in return, but given the day you've had, for you I'll do it for free."

"I appreciate the offer," Vegard said, "but I had some lessons when I was younger. Besides, I'm only in town for the night. And still bleeding. And my day wasn't nearly as bad as hers was."

The fossegrimmen chuckled. "True. Well, should you ever feel the urge to acquire more skills from your local fossegrimmen, the standard price is stolen meat."

"Stolen meat?" Vegard echoed.

"It's tradition. Personally I don't say no to stolen chocolate, either, but some of my colleagues consider it a breach of protocol."

"But it has to be stolen?"

The fossegrimmen gave him a rueful nod. "'I'm afraid so."

Vegard tried to smile. There was a crust of blood on his lips. "Thank you for the chance to sit. I should get going, though. It's getting dark, and I'm starting to get cold." He got painfully to his feet. Even in the few minutes that he'd been sitting, he'd started to stiffen up. 

"Safe travels, boy," the fossegrimmen called after him, as he made his way down the hillside through deepening dusk.

***

It was dark, and Bård was starting to think seriously about taking a walk around town and asking anyone else if they'd seen Vegard. No, he realized as he sat up and grabbed his hoodie, there were other ways to check. He reached into the back of his mind and felt a seething knot of hurt and humiliation. It was alarming, but it was also close and drawing closer. He heard an engine, and saw headlights sweep the parking lot below. Finally. He sagged with relief.

Two minutes later, the room door opened. Vegard was carrying Bård's suitcase and a bag of groceries. It was held in such a way that it covered his face, though, and there was something wrong with his posture. "Vegard?"

Vegard put the bags down on the dresser, and hung his jacket on the back of a chair. He was dirty and bruised, he had blood on his face and down the front of his shirt and leaves in his hair, and there was a string hanging from one nostril. "I stole your underpants," he said raggedly.

Bård erupted in laughter. Vegard tucked his chin in and turned his face aside, and Bård tried to calm down for his brother's sake, but when he saw that ridiculous string, it set him off all over again. "Do you know how you look right now? I mean, of all the things you could say!" 

Vegard looked at the ground and compressed his lips, but a twinkle crept into his eyes, and the corners of his mouth started to twitch, and soon his shoulders were shaking with mirth. He tottered to the other bed, one hand pressed to the side of his face as if to hold it in place while he laughed. When he broke off, with a little moan, he said, "Thanks. I really, really needed that."

Bård came to stand over him, and caught hold of the string. "You realize this invalidates your entire argument about not using them yourself." 

"I never realized how useful they are for first aid applications," Vegard said. "And I was bleeding and I had to drive, and happened to have one right--owwwoooowwwoooowwwwww!" Bård yanked on the string until the tampon popped out. Vegard felt the bridge of his nose experimentally. "Okay. Not broken. Definitely bruised."

Bård got him a glass of water from the bathroom. "Who did this to you? What happened?"

Vegard took a sip, swished it around, made a little retching noise in his throat, and then bolted into the bathroom. When he came out, he was stripped down to his boxer briefs and somewhat cleaned up, wiping his mouth with a tissue. His dirty, bloody clothes were soaking in cold water in the tub. "It's a long story. A bad misunderstanding. I didn't deserve this, but I can't really fault the person who did it."

"I got worried about you," Bård said. "I woke up and Nico said you were getting groceries, so I called the supermarket and asked if they'd seen my older brother. When I described you, the woman I spoke to said she'd seen you hours ago. And that I sounded terrible. She called me honey and told me to breathe into the pain. Ten minutes later, the front desk sent up a heating pad and a slice of the darkest chocolate cake I've ever seen, on the house. I saved you some. Half. Well, a mouthful."

Vegard started laughing again. He sat down on the unclaimed bed, and gingerly lay down for a moment.

Bård picked up the tampon by the string. "I'll be back with some ice for your face. I'd better go and dispose of this in Nico's shower."


	9. GYLLENMANNEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game / The elf of Wall Street / The horde / "Boy, that escalated quickly." / Extraordinary uses of Norwegian flora #5: broccoli / Simple

They'd gotten to Trondheim a few hours before their first interview was scheduled, and were relaxing in the room, having hooked up their game console to the television. Yesterday they'd made a planned stop at an airfield for Vegard to log some flight hours, and while he'd landed shortly before sundown, as far as Bård was concerned his older brother was still hovering a few feet off the ground, happy and relaxed and oh so talkative. The game seemed like a good way of congenially shutting him up. 

Then the phone in the room rang, and Bård's stomach did a little flip. If it was the studio, they would have called the crew. If it was family, then something was wrong.

He paused the game, and exchanged an anxious look with Vegard. Bård was closer to the phone, so he picked up. "Hello?”

"Mr. Ylvisåker? It's the front desk.”

"Yeah. Which one of us do you want?”

"Both of you, actually. You and your brother have a visitor in the lobby.”

"Visitor,” Bård told Vegard, who had put down his controller and was, well, hovering. "Thanks,” he said to the front desk. "We'll be right down.”

They padded down to the lobby in their sock feet, and found an apparently fortysomething blonde woman with glasses, a briefcase, and a conservative grey suit. And pointed ears. "Hello,” she said. Vegard stuck out a hand for her to shake. She shook it, appearing to be a little thrown off balance, and moved quickly to Bård's hand. 

"Hi,” Bård said.

"Nice to meet you,” Vegard said. 

"Hm,” she said, consulting a file folder that seemed to contain, among other things, pictures of them. "You were in Kristiansand two and a half months ago?”

"Yes,” they said together, exchanging another look. 

"You host a television program called _Norway's Most Wonderful_?”

"Yeah,” Bård said. 

"Did we do something wrong?” Vegard asked. 

She stared at him for a long time, as if he had, just by speaking. Vegard gazed back mildly. Finally, she said, "You are in possession of one of the experimental glamour filters from NUA?”

Bård lifted his chin in something that wasn't quite a nod.

"I have instructions from Lord Linnael Aruviel to seek you out and indicate that he is willing to make himself available for an interview.”

"Linnael Aruviel, you say,” Bård said. "You'll have to forgive us, but we're a couple of stupid humans.”

Her eyes flashed. "Steadfast champion of the Bright Court, and one of the jewels of the Samkoma.”

"We have tomorrow afternoon free,” said Vegard, doubtfully. "We'd have to ask the crew.”

"Ask, then,” the elf said. "Make them understand that Lord Aruviel is granting you a great honour, and speaking on a matter of the utmost importance.” Then she stood there. 

"What, _now_?” Bård said.

Vegard sighed, and pulled out the Massive Cell Phone of Doom. After a thirty-second conversation, he hung up and said, "Three o'clock?”

The elf nodded. "Sverres Gate Nord. The Golem. Tell your crew to walk widdershins around the fountain thirteen times to gain access.”

"How does that work?” Vegard asked. 

"It's the standard spell for bypassing geo-based glamour.”

"But how?”

She glared at him. "Because that is how it is.” She sighed, and looked away. "It's difficult enough that no one will ever do it by accident, but simple enough that if you find yourself stranded, there is a reliable way to get in. Provided no one's blocked you.”

"Ah,” Vegard said. "Thank you.”

The elf took her leave, and the brothers padded back upstairs. "Why do you keep asking such ridiculous questions?” Bård asked. 

"I want to know how things work,” Vegard said.

"Thinking of going to wizard school? You're not keeping an owl in the hotel room. It'd poop on everything.”

"Magic has to follow rules,” Vegard said. "We don't have time to learn everything, but the better we know the rules, the better idea we'll have of how to act. We'll be in less danger if we understand as much as we can.”

***

Linnael Aruviel was perfect. That was the best word for him, but if Bård were pressed to choose others, he could have added poised, charming, well dressed, radiant, graceful, polite, articulate, and punctual. The lios alfr looked like what would happen if Lord of the Rings were set on Wall Street. He wore a tailored suit, and his blond hair was slicked back into a ponytail. His handshake was firm, with a grip that suggested great strength, barely kept in check.

They'd been to Trondheim before, of course, but this time, under the influence of the King's Mead, the corner of Sverres Gate and Erling Skakkes Gate was a four-way intersection. The street to the north hurt a little to look at for any length of time, but they had had to stand there and wait for the crew to do their thirteen circuits. 

The Golem was a coffee shop. The sign showed a hulking clay figure with a piece of paper stuck to its forehead. Instead of Hebrew, though, the paper had a latte on it. Linnael Aruviel had been at a table by the window, waiting for them. 

There was no room for the crew at the table, so they were filming from the next table over, with Kai's glamour filter duct taped over the camera lens. "He's impressive," Vegard whispered as the elf thanked the waitress for the tray of coffee she'd brought. 

"Now I know what you must feel like next to me all the time," Bård muttered back. 

Aruviel's green eyes were suddenly fixed on them, and Bård felt scruffy and childish and unprofessional. He cleared his throat. "Ah, I'm not quite sure what to call you. Do you like Linnael, or Mr. Aruviel, or His Worshipfulness, or what?"

"Lord Aruviel," Aruviel said. "So, you're what the humans have sent out to find Norway's most wonderful, are you?"

"Yeah," they said at the same time.

"How's that going for you?"

"We're enjoying it," Bård said.

"We've met some really, really interesting people," Vegard added.

"And if I told you that you're very lucky you haven't been killed yet?”

Bård quirked his mouth. "We hear a lot of that.” 

Aruviel leaned forward. "Most humans don't realize that seething below the surface of the world is an unending struggle, an epic battle of good versus evil. They go about their daily lives completely unaware of the monsters that surround them, and of how close these monsters are to breaking into their safe little world."

"So, you're protecting humanity?" Bård asked.

"I am. My work requires constant vigilance, self-sacrifice, and sometimes, although it breaks my heart, a willingness to do terrible things."

"What would be an example of a terrible thing?" Vegard asked.

"When I was in university," Aruviel said, "the alchemy department made the mistake of admitting a svartalfr student who went on to steal an important formula that he could have used to destabilize what was at the time a very delicate balance of power. I was one of the Bright Court who volunteered to recapture the formula. It was a long chase, and a terrible battle, and it ended in a fire that I understand humans still talk about to this day. But we stood firm against the chaos. In many ways, the moment of our victory was one of the defining moments of my life."

"Wow,” Bård said. 

"That's really something,” Vegard agreed. 

"These are dark times for the lios alfar,” Aruviel told them. "The svartalfar are gaining power, encroaching on our territory, making bolder and bolder forays into the world above. Make no mistake: if the Bright Court falls to them, humans will become their prey.”

"Tell us about these svartalfar,” Bård said. "Please.”

Aruviel bent over the table, and motioned them closer. He had elderberries on his breath. "Imagine the creatures of your worst nightmares: small, capering, demonic, bloodthirsty imps. They spend their lives underground, breeding like rabbits, spilling out to wreak havoc. Now they have infiltrated our university and our commercial ventures, and they are poised to seize our government.”

"From that description, it seems like they would be easy enough to spot,” Bård said.

"Indeed they are, but they have learned the honeyed speech of men, and the art of playing on the finer emotions. They would have you believe that they are poor unfortunate creatures who have never been given a chance to step into the light, when in reality they have been given chance after chance, and turned it to evil. But the hearts of the lios alfar were ever noble, ever moved by pity, and I fear that they have allowed the corruption to spread.”

"So,” Bård said, "what do you do about this?”

"Our people have a prophecy," Aruviel said. "A hero will rise from among the humans to vanquish the svartalfar and all their misbegotten kin."

"Prophecy," Vegard echoed, leaning forward. "Really."

"Indeed," Aruviel said. "The Chosen One will rise from obscurity to save elvenkind. He will be fair of face, keen of wit, and pure of heart; and if victorious, he will rule at the Faerie King's right hand."

"Sounds like a good gig," Bård observed. 

"So how does the Chosen One get chosen?" Vegard asked. "Do you hold tryouts? Is there a DNA test?" 

Aruviel laughed gently. "We have an idea of what we're looking for." His green eyes met Bård's blue ones, and narrowed. "No...not you. You're too green, too silly, too immature."

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's exactly what I keep telling him," Vegard said breezily.

" _You_ shut up," Aruviel snapped, and Vegard subsided with a nervous smile, plucking at his lower lip with his thumb. The elf smiled at Bård. "I'm sure you're a very nice boy, but the Chosen One is a steadfast, courageous _man_."

" _Boy, that escalated quickly_ ," Bård observed in English, in his best Ron Burgundy voice.

"We could try you out," Aruviel said, standing and unsheathing his sword. 

"Ai!" Bård sprang to his feet, eyes darting around the café. Some people were looking; some were minding their own business. The crew were sitting with shocked looks on their faces, but no one else looked panicked, or about to intervene. "I'm a conscientious objector."

Aruviel's eyes flashed. "You think you can turn away a horde of svartalfar by conscientiously objecting to them?" he thundered. He pulled a second scabbard from next to his chair and tossed it. Surprised, Bård caught it. "Aha! You have a gift for it, boy; you just need the mettle. Defend yourself!"

It wasn't so much a gift as years of juggling. Bård let his hands drop to his sides. "I don't want anyone to get hurt," he said. "Least of all me."

"We're at _war_ , boy!" Aruviel barked. "People are going to get hurt whether you like it or not." His voice softened. "I know it takes a noble heart to refuse to fight, but what happens when the only ones fighting are the ones with ignoble hearts? Perhaps you're too gentle to defend yourself, but would you defend... _him_?"

The naked blade darted for Vegard's shoulder, and Bård moved to block it without thinking. Aruviel's steel met the scabbard of Bård's sword--and the coffee tray. Vegard's eyes were very wide, and the left sleeve of his sweater was dripping with coffee. Looking from Bård to Aruviel, he eased the tray back, rocking it a little to disentangle it from the blades.

Aruviel appraised him coolly, and pulled back his sword.

Bård let the scabbard fall to his side. "So, what is it that you're, ah, wanting us for?"

"I can train you," Aruviel said. "I can turn you into the hero you're destined to be."

"No. I work with my brother."

Aruviel's eyes ticked from one to the other. Bård met his gaze steadily. Vegard was trying to use the sugar decanter to hammer the dents out of his tray. He looked up at both of them, then back down. "Fine," Aruviel sighed. "Both of you, meet me in Høyskoleparken at sunrise tomorrow." He reached out, and Bård handed him the second scabbard. Then in one fluid motion, he swirled his trenchcoat around his shoulders, and stalked away.

"Are you all right?" Vegard asked, looking up again.

"Fine," Bård said. "You?"

"Yeah, yeah."

The crew converged on them. "Oh my _god_ ," Knut breathed. 

"Are you boys okay?" Nico asked. At their nods, he said, "Ready to summarize? Or do you want to decompress for a couple of hours?"

Vegard shook his head, and sprang to his feet, waiting just until he got the nod from Nico. "So that was Linnael-- _Lord_ Linnael Aruviel. Quite the character. What did you think, Bård?"

"I think that was definitely an experience," Bård said. "He's a very impressive character indeed, but I got the distinct impression that we weren't quite up to his standards."

"No," Vegard agreed, "but he's the first elf-lord we've ever interviewed, so I think we can be forgiven for that."

"We'll learn for next time," Bård said.

***

They ate dinner at the hotel. Everything was quiet and amiable, and the crew seemed to be treating the brothers with extra gentleness. Nevertheless, Bård felt a thrumming in the back of his mind somewhere, a note of tension that he couldn't tune out or turn off.

Back in the room, Vegard said, "My broccoli was overcooked."

Bård sat down on the bed, turned on the television, and flipped through the channels. "Bummer."

"It was _grey_." Vegard got halfway to his bed and stood there, shoulders hunched, fists clenched, elbows locked at his sides. He was breathing hard. "Broccoli's not supposed to be grey."

"You should have just left it on your plate then." 

"I _couldn't_ ," Vegard retorted. "I'm supposed to be eating more brassicas, remember? Except that they apparently don't know how to cook broccoli in Trondheim. This is why I hate brassicas; nobody knows how to cook them properly, and they just turn grey." He'd started pacing around the room, picking up random objects and putting them down. "Slippery, mushy, disgusting, _grey_!"

"You don't need to yell at the broccoli," Bård said mildly.

"No, I need to _yell_ to be heard over the television! I can't even hear myself think! I'm so sick of this, Bård! There's no privacy, and I spend every single night in a bed that's been marinating in the bodily secretions of probably a thousand people." He yanked open the drawer of the nightstand. Face contorted in fury, he brandished a copy of the New Testament. "And there's a bloody _Bible_ everywhere I go!" He wound up, and before Bård could manage more than a squawk of protest, hurled the book into the wall that connected their room with the one the crew shared.

Bård turned off the television and got up from the bed. Vegard flinched away from him, but his eyes glittered with defiance. But Bård only knocked on the connecting door and called, "Hey, sorry for that." He looked down at the Bible, and was disappointed, on Vegard's behalf, that the little red volume hadn't sustained more damage. 

Vegard sank back to the bed, chin tucked in, fingers raking his chest over his t-shirt. "I miss my little girl," he wavered. "And I miss Helene. And a man tried to kill me today in public, in broad daylight, just to make a point. And nothing makes sense anymore."

Bård sat down on the bed next to his older brother, and put a careful arm around him. Vegard let him keep it there instead of twitching away, which was a good sign, but he was still shaking. "I don't even know how that happened," Bård confessed. "I keep thinking, did I do something to encourage him?"

 _Now_ Vegard twitched, but it felt like a convulsive shudder rather than an attempt to throw him off. "I thought I had. I thought I provoked him somehow."

"No, no. That thing with the sword, that was not okay, and it wasn't your fault, and I doubt it was even mine."

A little of the tension went out of Vegard's shoulders. "But we're still going to see him tomorrow?"

"I want to see him," Bård said. "I'm angry, but I'm curious. And I don't know why I care what he thinks, but I don't want him to think he was right about me. You don't have to come with me."

Vegard took a deep breath and raised his head, looking a bit more like himself. "I will, though. I don't want him to think he was right about me either. And you're right, he's a character. It'll be interesting. Right? Besides, I know you can handle yourself okay, but what if...?"

"What if I urgently need to know how vacuum tubes work? Or what type of clouds those are?" He was taking a risk, teasing Vegard right now, but the thrumming had eased and something told him the storm was over. 

Vegard, smiling, lightly cuffed the side of his head. "I meant, what if you need someone with a even a modicum of combat training, or small arms experience, or god forbid first aid?"

"I'll be glad to have you there," Bård said. "But I think right now, you need some time with the family you chose." He reached into Vegard's bag, and fished out his brother's laptop and handed it to him. Then he went over to his own luggage. On the way, he picked up the Bible by one corner, and set it back in the drawer. "Christ. Wouldn't it be a kick in the teeth if _this_ turned out to be real?"

"It's not," Vegard said shortly.

"How do you know? Everything else has been."

"But it's not a free-for-all. There are _rules_. I don't know them all, but I'm starting to see patterns, and this isn't part of them. Besides...do you know what they say, about the Underjordiske? It was one of the things Kai told me while you were getting coffee. He said one story is that they were Eve's other children, that she wasn't finished bathing when God came to visit, so she hid them, and he said, 'Let what is hidden stay hidden.' Bård, I met a huldra child who had cut out her own voice to be more like the lios alfar. I had to chase off a swarm of them, tormenting her. Let's just pretend for a second that everything is wrong, and there's a God after all. If ordering the world that way is his sick idea of justice, he's not worth worshipping." 

Bård crossed the room again, and gave his brother's shoulder a squeeze. There were tears on Vegard's cheeks. Bård went back to his luggage and scooped up his own laptop. "I'll be in the bathroom. Go Skype Helene."

***

The next morning, Bård and Vegard walked out to the park, wearing worn jeans and tattered hoodies. Aruviel waited for them, arms folded. He was dressed in smart white leather with indigo accents. "I see you didn't bother trying to look presentable."

"Of course not," Vegard said. "It doesn't make sense to dress up just to get dirty."

The elf's face turned stormy.

"We have only so much clothing on the road with us," Bård explained. "If we ruin our presentable clothes, we've got nothing to wear for the show."

"So you say," Aruviel said, "but a poor choice of clothing denotes a fundamental lack of respect. See that you wear something nicer in the future."

They learned about swords: basic safety, simple combinations of moves, and then they practiced with a dummy, a couple of pillowcases stuffed with sticks and leaves. Bård found himself enjoying the drills. It was like rehearsal, and there was a certain joy in moving his body in precisely controlled ways to produce results. Vegard started out very quiet and nervous, but he'd had a bit of combat training during his time in the military, and it looked like he was able to build on that. Where Bård moved with a dancer's flair and grace, Vegard's swordplay was swift, economical, and precise.

Midway through the morning, while Vegard was running through a combination that he'd found particularly difficult, Aruviel drew Bård aside. "Are you sure about your brother?"

"Sure about what?"

"Can we trust him? He has a svartalfr feeling about him. He seems very uncomfortable in the presence of a lord of the Bright Court."

"Don't take it personally, Lord Aruviel. He's like that with pretty much everyone who tries to cut his arm off."

Aruviel rolled his eyes and sighed. "I can't afford to go easy on him, and he can't afford to sulk because I hurt his precious little feelings.” He raised his sword, and stepped into Vegard's path. "There's a war on, boy!” he barked, as their swords clashed. "The svartalfar are amassing their forces on All Hallows' Eve.”

"Hallowe'en?” Bård said. "That's five days away.”

"I guess,” Vegard grunted, blocking Aruviel's sword, "that that makes things...terribly... terribly...simple!” He hooked a foot under Aruviel's ankle, and the elf had to leap back to avoid being tripped. Vegard stood drenched in sweat in the frosty October morning, and flipped a curl out of his eyes. "Doesn't it?”

Aruviel's sword flashed out, and the flat of it caught Vegard's wrist, startling him and making him drop his weapon. "It means that we can't afford for you to make things complicated. And we have to work fast. Tomorrow we'll start with swords, and then we'll move on to staves.” He waited for Vegard to retrieve his weapon, and launched himself forward again. "Defend yourselves!"


	10. LYSEDAMER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The proper accessories / Poking people with sticks / Extraordinary uses of Norwegian flora #6: the linden / Turkish delight / Sticks and stones / When ostriches attack

It was a Saturday evening, and in an odd bubble of space/time, the daughters of Linnael Aruviel were in the bower they shared, engaged in womanly pursuits. "I think it would look fabulous on you, Melantha," said the younger one as she attached a bit of ornamentation. "Oh, but you'd have to fancy it up a bit to get noticed." 

"You think so, Jessalyn? What would you add, little sister?"

"Do they have a certificate in Translation Studies? I hear everyone's getting them these days."

"Hmmm...hm! Yes, they do."

There was a sharp knock just as Jessalyn was adjusting the positioning, and she jumped. "Come in," she sighed. "Daddy, you spoiled my inlay just now."

He glared at the offending piece. "It's no good anyway. Throw it away and get another."

She let out a little cry of frustration. " _Daddy_ , this is bubinga! It's expensive and hard to get."

"I work very hard to get you the things you deserve," he growled.

Melantha saw her opportunity, and went for it. "Papa, speaking of hard work, I've made up my mind. I'm getting a Ph.D. in Elven Studies."

He put a hand up to his shining brow, pinching his temples. Then he took a deep breath, and said, "My darlings, I have a great favour to ask of you. _And_ \--if you do it, Melantha, you have my blessing for the Ph.D., and Jessalyn, I will buy you a new piece of bubinga for your woodworking."

They watched him, and waited.

"I have taken a young human under my tutelage, but he is headstrong, contrary, and inclined to silliness. I really must impress upon him the stakes of the battle we face."

"Oh, no," Melantha said. "You're not roping me into this. Some of my best friends are Underjordiske."

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "No, no. Nothing like that. It's just that he has a little brother, a poor, dull, swarthy mongrel that he looks after. I've been trying to train both of them to keep the gifted one happy, but I fear that the dark one is too simple, and far too attached to his brother, to let the training proceed the way it should. I simply ask that you entertain him tomorrow with all the gifts at your disposal--which, by the way, will include the Circlet of Sælu, which I borrowed for a few days--and give me a chance to teach a proper lesson to the other."

"If we say no?" Jessalyn said.

Their father shrugged. "Then I'll get along somehow, but I really worry that he's going to hurt himself."

Melantha sighed. "Ph.D. and bubinga. You promise."

"I promise." 

"And you're not going to use this in one of your crusades against svartalfar."

Linnael Aruviel closed his eyes and counted to ten. "I can promise not to fire the first volley," he said, "but I can't promise not to fight back."

***

At sunrise, Vegard and Bård parked the van at a small parking area just off Fjellseterveien, one of the roads that ran through the Bymarka recreational area just outside of the city. They were wearing the sparring outfits that Aruviel had grudgingly approved: oversized blue satin pyjamas that had been on clearance at the H&M at Trondheim Torg. These had the advantage of fitting over jeans, sweaters, hoodies, and long underwear, while allowing freedom of movement. The cuffs were held back with ponytail holders, and the brothers had secured their long hair back from their faces with more ponytail holders and headbands.

Aruviel was there. He led them down a walking trail, and then through dense woods, to a clearing bordered on one side by pines and on the other by a grove of linden trees. "This is our new practice ground," he said. By the edge of the clearing were three broom handles, a long slim leather and silk case, and two beautiful young lios alfar women in exquisite gowns. "These are my daughters Jessalyn and Melantha. When I told them that today your intensive training would begin, naturally they wanted to watch." 

Jessalyn and Melantha waved, and tittered. Bård and Vegard exchanged a look, and waved back.

"Now," Aruviel said, "if I have only three days to prepare you before All Hallows' Eve, today we must fight seriously. Each of you take up a broom handle."

"No breaking any limbs, though," Bård said. "We have to meet an ostrich farmer in the afternoon."

"Always joking," Aruviel growled. "See how you laugh when you're dangling at the end of someone's spear tip! I mean to shape you up today, boy." His gaze shifted to Vegard, who had picked up a stick and was hefting it. " _Both_ of you. I know you think I'm a harsh taskmaster, but believe me, I have lost too many comrades to want to send unseasoned boys into battle, or to find the humour in any of this." He took up another staff. "Defend yourselves!" he thundered.

They assumed the stance he'd taught them, and parried every blow he sent their way. Bård thought they were doing quite well, co-ordinating their movements with the help of Huginn's eyes. And then he tripped on nothing at all. He managed to use his broom handle to keep his feet, but a moment later there was a shout from Vegard, who landed heavily on the frosted ground beside him. 

Aruviel was over him in an instant. "Boy!" He grabbed one of Vegard's arms and hauled him to his feet, but Vegard didn't seem to be able to straighten his leg. "Oh, goodness."

Bård knelt by his brother. "I'm fine," Vegard said through clenched teeth. "Just give me a couple of minutes."

"No, no," Aruviel said, with something approaching gentleness. "That's enough for you for one day. I can see that I've pushed you beyond your abilities. Girls, why don't you take this brave lad away and tend his wounds?"

The girls grumbled and glared, but one got under each of Vegard's arms. They helped him to rise, and walked him out of the park and out of sight. Aruviel watched them go. Then he eyed his broomstick, tossed it onto the ground next to Vegard's, and opened the slender case. 

"That poor boy. He did try; I'll give him that.” Aruviel hefted a staff that appeared to be made of a single, impossibly long piece of bone. "You fight very well for a beginner, Bård. Now, let us take you to the next level."

***

"It's just a charley-horse," Vegard protested as the young women helped him limp away. "If you'd just put me down, I could massage it out and get back to training."

"No," the older one said, gently but firmly. "You may have noticed, our father is used to having his directives obeyed. Jessalyn and I would be absolutely fine if we took you back, but we aren't the ones who'd be sparring with a very annoyed seasoned fighter, would we?"

He looked from one sister to the other, and wondered if he could safely share his suspicions. Based on everyone's positions when Bård had gone down, there was no set of circumstances Vegard could imagine in which the end of the broom handle could have been jammed that hard into the back of his thigh accidentally. But he kept quiet; it was humiliating enough to have to be carried away like this, and if he was reading them wrong, they'd think even less of him for trying to turn them against their own father.

They left the path and entered a copse of linden trees. "Where are we going?" he asked. 

"Home," the younger one said. "Just watch."

Further into the copse, the lindens were fuller, still leafy. Further still and they were green, a summer green, over a carpet of catchfly and sweet-scented bedstraw. The air was noticeably warmer, and the texture of the ground had changed subtly. It was still springy, but it was flat, and made no sound under their feet. Curious, Vegard begged a halt, and slipped off his shoes and socks. As he picked them up, he brushed the ground with his hand. It felt warm and natural, but very...well behaved. As he hobbled on, barefoot, he detected no twigs, no stones, not even a dip or a hill. As safe as carpeting. The girls stopped walking. They were in an immense--but somehow still shaded--clearing. With furniture in it. 

"Welcome to Lindfestning," the younger one said with a curtsey. Vegard wanted to break away from them, to look for walls, to figure out the illusion, to puzzle out the geometry of the room. Instead they deposited him on a couch that appeared to have been fashioned out of elaborate coils of wicker, but upon closer inspection was alive and growing that way. "Sit! Be merry and of good heart!” That last had the flavour of a customary greeting. "Can we get you anything to eat or drink?"

Vegard's gaze fixed on the standing lamp to one side of the room, and, eyes dancing, he asked, "Do you have Turkish delight?"

The younger one's face fell. "No. Baklava, though. Cheesecake. Nugatti, but all we have is onion bread. Unless you want to eat it straight from the jar."

"Cheesecake would be a thousand times better than Turkish delight," he said, with feeling.

While the younger one slipped out of the room, the older one--Melantha, was it?--took from a side table a beautifully worked golden circlet with an iridescent gem set into the centre, and handed it to him. "Fancy," he observed. "What kind of mineral is that?" He touched the stone, and stifled a yelp as a bolt of pure pleasure arced down his spine. He yanked his hand away from it. The metal seemed to be safe enough to grab. "Ah. Excuse me. It looks like opal," he continued shakily, "but the striations are unusual for opal. Normally they refract light because of their structure. It's, it's like a lattice of spheres. But this looks...strange. It, ah, feels a little strange too, to be honest."

"It's the Stone of Sælu," Melantha told him. Behind her, the younger one returned, carrying a cheesecake on a crystal plate in one hand, and dessert plates and cutlery in the other. "It brings delight to the wearer. Put it on and see how you like it."

"I'm not much of a tiara person," he said.

"It's not a tiara; it's a circlet." Before Vegard could protest, the older sister had taken it from him and placed it onto his head. Once again, something like a delicious electric shock ran through him, and he jerked back against the couch, jarring it loose and breaking the contact. He lifted the circlet from his head. "Oh," he said. "Oh, wow."

"You can leave it in place, if you like," the younger one told him. 

And then there was a raw blast of second-hand pain, and somewhere in his mind, Bård was screaming his name.

***

A shriek tore loose from Bård as Aruviel pinned him to the tree with the bone staff. It was as if the staff was electrified, but what it conducted was agony. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, his voice rising to a scream in spite of himself.

Aruviel didn't ease up. "I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation, Bård. I'm trying to help you with that, but you're not making it easy. I need you to stop wisecracking, stop complicating things, do what you're told, and fight the good fight."

"Do what I'm told? I'm not military! You want Vegard! Vegard!"

There was an answering flare from somewhere in the back of his mind, and the pain subsided, just like that. Through the link, Vegard was sending him something that cancelled it out. Bård took the briefest second to enjoy the respite. Then he raised his own staff--clumsily, but Aruviel clearly wasn't expecting it. Bård freed himself and struck Aruviel twice before the elf recovered and dealt him a blow to his wrist. It would have stung him anyway, but now sent pain roaring through him. Bård dropped to his knees...and then it stopped again. He planted his staff in the ground, used it to haul himself up, and advanced on Aruviel.

***

Vegard pulled the circlet away from his forehead again, and moaned. "Well, quit taking it off," Melantha said a little impatiently. "It breaks the contact."

He opened his eyes. "That's the point. But he keeps getting up." 

The sisters had carried him to their bower and propped him up on pillows. Periodically, his face would twist and his muscles would clench, and then he would press the stone to his forehead and make it stop. 

It was the staff, he saw through his brother's eyes. It appeared to be made of bone, and even the lightest of touches _hurt_. And Aruviel wasn't fighting normally with it; he was fighting in such a way to maximize contact between the staff and Bård's skin.

"Tell me," Vegard panted during a moment of respite, "does the Stone of Sælu have, like, an evil twin?"

Melantha and Jessalyn stared down at him, and then looked at each other. "The Kvølstafur," Jessalyn gasped. "That long case."

"We're idiots," Melantha said.

Vegard bit back a scream and clutched at the stone. He'd grabbed at it badly, and felt the metal of the circlet pierce his hand, but the pain was a small thing compared to what he was getting from Bård, and it soon faded with the rest. 

Jessalyn said, "You're connected to your brother?"

Vegard nodded. "I think Aruviel has the, the Kvølstafur. He's using it on Bård." 

"We should have known," Melantha said. "It's the very same technology. The dwarves keep them together. If our father was going to borrow one and not the other, it would be the staff. He wouldn't have a use for the stone. Oh...you're bleeding."

The onslaught ended, and Vegard loosed his hold on the circlet. "Just keep it on, why don't you?" Jessalyn said, handing him a tissue for his hand. 

"Because the link goes both ways, and if I leave it on, Bård won't be able to fight. The stone can be a weapon too; it's just a lot nicer."

"No doubt," Melantha said grimly. "Father must have thought you'd find it, and us, a wonderful diversion while he used the staff on your brother. Vegard, I'm so sorry. We should have known."

"No...no," he soothed. His back arched. "No no no no no!" Jessalyn pressed the circlet to his forehead. Vegard sank back onto soft moss, eyes squeezed shut. : _Bård, stay down. If you can hear me, please stay down._ :

The answer he got back wasn't words; it was a tide of rage and defiance and shame. 

_:Bård, listen to me. Please listen. I know it's not fair or right, but it will be better in the long run, right? He's doing this on purpose, and he'll keep doing it until he thinks he's broken you. And maybe you can keep this up all day, but I can't.:_

***

Bård had already risen, swaying, to his knees. If he hadn't already been relying so heavily on the relief that Vegard was sending him, he would have missed the plea embedded in it. He could reach out just enough to verify that his older brother, far from enjoying himself in comfort with lovely elven maidens, felt every blow of the staff right along with him.

Aruviel stood over him, poised to strike again. It took a lot of talking himself down, but not a lot of acting, to simply collapse on the cold ground at the elf's feet, with tears running down his cheeks. "Please, no more, Lord Aruviel," Bård begged. 

Aruviel put a fatherly hand on Bård's shoulder, helped him to his feet, and embraced him. "Finally." He drew back, and looked into Bård's face. "I see a fire in your eyes. The man is taking shape. More than the man--the Chosen One."

Bård bit back a retort and lowered his eyes. "Thank you, Lord Aruviel.”

The elf returned the staff of bone to its case. "Take a short rest. You deserve it. Then we'll run through this again, shall we?"

***

After an eternity of wandering, Vegard began to feel that he'd been here before. Well, not precisely _here_ here, but close. And he was just beginning to construct an elementary map of where the Isle of the Blissed was located in relation to the Sea of Very Good Mead when he realized that he was dreaming. Had, in fact, been dreaming for a very long time. At the realization, he rose up and sprouted wings like a dragon, performed a flight check, and tried to claw and roar his way back to the mainland.

The world changed, and he was in a room hung with greenery, restrained by two extraordinarily beautiful women, one of whom was in the process of taking a gold circlet away from him. With difficulty, his ancient brain dug up their names, and a voice raspy from centuries of disuse said, "Jessalyn. Melantha. How long has it been?"

Melantha looked up at the clock face set into a live oak. "Twelve minutes. We were going to give you twenty to rest, but you got restless and pulled the circlet off by yourself. Nightmare?"

"I wish," Vegard said. He struggled to sit up, and this time they let him. "Isn't there something about time dilation in Faerie? You spend a day there and when you get back you've been gone a hundred years?"

"We don't do that anymore," Jessalyn said.

"Although at this point I wouldn't put it past Daddy," Melantha muttered.

"But even if he would," Jessalyn said, "Melantha and I wouldn't do it to you or anyone. How do you feel?"

He did a quick internal audit. Even twelve minutes of sleep had done wonders. He felt like a fever had broken, or a bad headache had eased. "Much better. Thank you. Is there water around?"

Jessalyn grabbed a sheet of paper from one of the two ivy-covered desks, fashioned it into a conical cup, and put it up to a tiny waterfall trickling down one of the rock walls. "Here." The water was clear and cold and delicious, and Vegard drank gratefully. 

"This is too far," Melantha fumed. "He did that to your leg on purpose, you know. I thought it was to protect you. That was what he told us--that the younger brother was a bit of a tagalong, and he wanted us to take care of you so you wouldn't get hurt. I thought it was weird, considering how well you were fighting." 

"That rather recasts it," Jessalyn said. "Not, 'Take care of him so he won't get hurt,' but 'Take care of him or I'll hurt him.' How is your brother doing now, Vegard? Can you see?"

Vegard checked. "They're doing drills with the broomsticks again. He's..." He shut his eyes and sighed, and tried to think of a word for the searing, yawning, leaden cold in Bård's thoughts. He rubbed his chest. Christ, he was bad with feelings. "He's...numb. My _little_ brother is numb."

There was nothing any of them could do for Bård right now. Melantha spoon-fed Vegard cheesecake and braided his hair. Jessalyn showed off her woodworking, and answered all of his questions about the machines. Vegard told them about his pilot's license, about planes, about navigation and heading indicators and gyroscopes. 

They were in the music room--bog-themed, with lilies and moss all around, although the only moisture was a well behaved little pond in the corner--when the summons came. Jessalyn was playing a homemade glockenspiel, while Melantha's fingers wandered over the harp as she sang, and Vegard played the harpsichord and sang with her, when a soft bell-like sound interrupted them, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. "That's dad," Melantha sighed. "We need to get you back to the practice ground, Vegard."

Vegard played a little flourish before taking his fingers off the keys. "Thank you for this morning," he said. "I feel...quite restored." He took a deep breath, and stroked his upper lip meditatively. "Is there any way...could you do this for Bård, too? He needs it more than I do. Only... not _right_ right now, because we have to go meet an ostrich farmer for our show."

Jessalyn had lit up as soon as Vegard had mentioned Bård's name. "Oh, do let's!"

They made tentative plans for the evening of the thirtieth. Everything would depend on Aruviel's movements, on his whims. Vegard felt certain that he could bear up for another few days. Bård he was less sure about.

***

As Vegard was putting on his shoes and socks, and the sweater and hoodie that he'd shed in the summery warmth of the bower, Melantha stood with her sister in a corner of the room and murmured, "What are we going to do, Jessalyn? This is all getting so very serious."

"We watch and we listen, and you get your Ph.D. and I get my Woodcraft, and find out where we can help, and do it. And if we find out what Daddy's up to, we stop it. Starting with fixing the brother. I can't wait to use the Stone on that one! Just imagine!"

"I think you'll find both artifacts have served their purpose," Melantha replied. "They won't be here tomorrow. Besides, if we ever have a chance again, we should ask first. I should have asked." She raised her voice. "Vegard? Today...with the Stone of Sælu...I'm sorry if I imposed that on you. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it was unkind and improper of me."

"No, no, no," he said. He seemed to be having trouble with the shoe on the leg Aruviel had charley-horsed. He kept loosening the laces, probably so that he wouldn't have to push his foot into it hard enough to flex the bruised muscle. "I understand. You had your orders. And if you hadn't, I'd have had no way to help Bård. Besides, I'm really used to it. It's part of the job."

"That doesn't make it all right," Melantha sighed. "I work very hard at not being my father." 

He gave her a little half-shrug in return, looked like he was about say something, and said instead, "You are not your father," as if that settled the matter.

"You," Jessalyn whispered, inclining her head at Vegard, "like him."

"Because I'm trying to respect his boundaries?" Melantha whispered back. "He's a person."

"I was thinking, because of the way you light up when he smiles at you." 

"I do like him, of course I do. He's brilliant and funny and pretty and sweet, and he has uncommonly beautiful eyes."

"And a steady girlfriend."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Jessalyn, but they both do. That part doesn't matter to me, though. I just want to protect him."

"Oh, is _that_ what the kids are calling it these days?"

Melantha kicked her little sister hard enough to make her squeal. Vegard, who had finally worked his shoe onto his foot and was now tightening the laces, looked up sharply, and gave them a grin that fell apart in a hurry. "I'm ready," he said, getting wincingly to his feet. "Let's go rescue my brother."

***

The interview with the ostrich farmer was a wash. He wasn't particularly weird, and he wasn't comfortable enough on camera to be interesting. They'd both scanned the promotional materials from the farm, and Vegard had done a lot of background research on ostrich farming, but when they brought up some of what they'd learned, the man answered in monosyllables, turning his body away from the camera. Vegard spoke fluent nerd and could usually draw out the awkward genius types, but salt-of-the-earth types were more Bård's department, and the most Bård could manage today was to be attentive but subdued. A couple of times he did try to crack jokes, but he heard the note of desperation in his own voice and wasn't surprised when the only response was uncomfortable stares.

Ulf did manage to capture the farmer wandering through the garage, showing the brothers his farming equipment, about which Vegard was able to ask very intelligent questions. But twenty minutes of talking about tractors wasn't good TV--couldn't even be edited into good TV, at least not good comedy. 

They thought they might be able to salvage the segment. A visit to the house might help, and of course they needed footage of the ostriches. A good ostrich might redeem everything. The crew was filming at the fence of the enclosure, and Ulf was getting some great shots of one who had come right up to the camera, blinking its enormous long-lashed eyes. And then a mere second later, the ostrich was bounding away, and Ulf and the camera were on the ground. 

Knut and Bård helped Ulf to his feet. The cameraman slipped a hand inside his torn jacket, and brought it away bloody. While Vegard limped for the first aid kit, Ulf pulled up his other shirts. The gash wasn't very long or very deep, but it was going to need stitches. They dressed it as best they could on site, and then Nico used the van to drive Ulf to the nearest hospital. 

Bård, Vegard, and Knut stood next to the farmer, watching the van speed away into the fading light. Vegard said, thinly, "He's lucky. Ostriches kill people."

The farmer nodded. "The fence probably saved his life. Well. You might as well come up to the house and meet the wife. I'll tell her to expect three more for dinner."

***

The farmwife could have saved the episode, Vegard thought, if there had been a camera there. She'd counted on them for dinner to begin with, reasoning that people who were there to see ostriches raised for food would want to taste them as well. In a clean but cluttered dining room, over an excellent ostrich goulash, she told them stories of working in props for the Yugoslavian film industry, dropping names that Vegard didn't think any of them had heard (except for Knut, who had worked with one of the gaffers she mentioned), but that they were clearly expected to ooh and ahh over. She had some of the props on display in her office, some badly damaged by bombing. And she had kept all of her children's and grandchildren's drawings, and they were astonishingly bad.

She didn't have to be told that something was wrong with Bård. She didn't prod him for conversation, or berate him for picking at his goulash, and when, halfway through the meal, he excused himself and bolted into the bathroom, she made no comment. 

After what he hoped was a decent interval, Vegard thanked her very much for dinner, and said he absolutely wanted dessert, but could he take a moment...? Then he left Knut to entertain the couple, and knocked softly at the door. "Bård?"

The door unlocked. 

Vegard went in, and found his little brother just settling back down into the dry clawfoot tub, fully clothed. His eyes were dry, but he was resting his chin on his bent knees, and he looked about twelve. "I wanted to sit on the edge," he said, "but it was really uncomfortable."

"It's okay," Vegard said. He knelt down on the tiled floor--his thigh still ached miserably, and although this was no picnic it was probably better than the edge--and reached over the high sides of the tub, and managed to give Bård a clumsy hug. "What do you need from me?"

Bård snorted. "I need you to take those braids out of your hair! How long have you had those? You look ridiculous."

"The sisters put them in. I was counting on them making you laugh eventually."

Bård hugged back, tightly, and then pulled away. He started picking the elastics out of Vegard's hair. "I need to go back out there and play at normal until Nico gets back. And then I think I'm going to go back to the hotel and go nuclear for a little while. Fair warning."

Vegard nodded solemnly, and opened his mouth.

"Not now!" Bård barked. "I know! But not now."

What Vegard said was, "The sisters want to see us again. The evening after tomorrow.”

Bård pocketed the handful of elastics, grabbed the sides of the tub, and hauled himself to his feet. "We have stuff to do.”

"I know,” Vegard said. "We'll make it work.”

"Whatever.” Bård stepped out of the tub, wobbling a little. Vegard stood, but let his brother precede him out of the room. Ahead of him, he heard Bård say, "Gee, sorry for that. I hope I didn't let my goulash get cold.”

***

It was around midnight when the van's headlights swept over the front of the farmhouse. The farmer and his wife had gone to bed by this time, and Vegard, Bård, and Knut sat in the kitchen with only the stove light on, playing Scrabble in a language where the Z was worth four points. Vegard scribbled a hasty note of thanks, and they walked out to meet Nico.

Vegard took the driver's seat. Bård thought of taking the front passenger seat, but then he slid open the rear door, and crawled into the very back, where he could be alone. 

"Shove over," Nico said. Bård thought of protesting, but he saw Nico's face, and moved. 

If Vegard or Knut thought it was weird that the middle seats were empty, neither of them said anything about it. 

Nico leaned over to Bård. "I've been wanting to talk to you."

"I'm really sorry, Nico. I just, I... I'm sorry. It's been a bad day."

"Linnael Aruviel?" 

Bård clenched his fists. "Vegard needs to give that golden singing voice of his a break."

"Vegard didn't tell me anything. Really. I cajoled, I guilted, I even bullied a little. I think I made him cry, but he _would not_ talk. But it doesn't take a genius to put things together. I don't know what he's doing to you guys, but I don't like it, I haven't liked it since he pulled his sword, and now it's affecting your work."

"I know," Bård said. He turned his face to the window. "Ulf nearly died because of me."

"What?"

"If I'd been doing my job, he wouldn't have tried to get so close to those ostriches."

"No, look, we were never going to get out of there without a shot of the ostriches. Don't heap that onto your plate too." A hand fell on Bård's shoulder. "I'd really hoped to be able to offer you an out today. The biomorphic architecture woman phoned yesterday to cancel; her father's broken his hip. And the hot air balloon pilot is just as reachable from Kristiansund as from Trondheim. I'd been going to say, if you want to just let go of whatever it is that you're doing here that's eating you both to pieces, and head to Kristiansund a few days early, I would have been very happy to do that."

The thought of running away, of just never seeing Linnael Aruviel again, was humiliating, extremely attractive, and probably wise. "But now we have to stay until we have a working camera," Bård sighed. 

"We do," Nico agreed. "However, you don't have to keep doing what you're doing. It can be my fault. I can get angry that we've shot so much unusable footage. I can make you two pound the pavement with a GoPro every single day until you come up with an ordinary, filmable human being doing something interesting. We can get you out of the Chesterfield and into somewhere else if you're worried about him tracking you down."

Bård nearly wept at the kindness. "Thank you," he whispered. "But...look, I hope you understand I don't feel like sharing what happened right now. But I..." Tears were leaking from his eyes, and he scrubbed them away. "I paid a really huge price for it today. And maybe if we could just go away, just not be here anymore, I would feel okay about leaving it behind me. But if we're staying, so help me, we're going to get what we paid for."


	11. FRAFALLET

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The special move / The rise of the Chosen One / For a free Narnia / Liverwurst wrangling / Seven ways to kill a man

The next morning, Bård was awake and in his sparring clothes before Vegard was out of the shower. "We need to get there early,” he said when his brother emerged. "There’s something you need to know. Bloody hell, Vegard!” 

"What?”

"Look at your leg.”

Vegard was sporting a large black and purple bruise the size of one of their hands. He went back into the bathroom to check it out, moving his towel around with a look of consternation. "Ow. That wasn't what I needed to know, was it?”

"No. Get dressed. We've gotta be early.”

At the practice ground in Bymarka, with the sky pinkening in anticipation of sunrise, Bård cursed himself. "What is it?” Vegard asked.

"I didn’t bring sticks. Aruviel showed me a move...after. I couldn’t feel you in my head with me, but he’ll probably end up doing it today so you should know it.”

Vegard disappeared into the linden forest and returned with a couple of branches, stripped down. "They’re not sturdy, but we can practice the motions.”

The move was more of a sequence, really, and it was well designed to keep an opponent guessing. "He’s very proud of it,” Bård said, after demonstrating to Vegard. "I think that’s why he waited until...he thought he could trust me.”

"Not just breaking you down; building you back up in his image,” Vegard said grimly.

"But I’m not broken down,” Bård said, just as grimly. He ran through the sequence again. This time, Vegard, knowing what was coming, was able to make countermoves. The third time through, he was able to block Bård at key turns. And the fourth time, he motioned for them to switch, and ran through Aruviel’s sequence himself while Bård attempted to block him. 

By this time, it was close to sunrise. Vegard squeezed Bård's shoulder, and pointed to the linden forest. "Remember what we talked about last night. Head down, wait for cues.”

"Play a role,” Bård said.

"Play a role.”

"It's not about _him_ ,” Bård said.

"It's about--?”

"The final product.”

"Right.”

Thinking of it as a role was both useful and comforting. Even though his stomach clenched when he saw Aruviel, Bård was able to avert his eyes and say Yes Lord Aruviel and No Lord Aruviel. He bit back the smart comments and snappy answers, and whenever he felt like rolling his eyes, he closed them instead and counted to ten. Vegard helped by giving Aruviel the same deferential treatment, and by making it look like he'd blocked Aruviel's special sequence through flailing and sheer luck. They were model pupils that day, and if Aruviel noticed that the quality of their work was much worse, he didn't seem to care.

***

The thirtieth was a Tuesday. Vegard and Bård trained with Aruviel that morning, two hours with staves and two hours with swords. The elf praised Bård’s skill.

As they walked back to the van, Vegard said, "You’re not that good.”

"I know,” Bård said. "I’ve only been doing this for four days, and you did it for what, a year?”

"No, no, no,” Vegard said. "I’m not that good either, but he’s not going to bother telling me otherwise. I mean...in a real battle with real swordsmen who have been doing this for any length of time, we’d be hamburger.”

"Whatever you’re trying to say, Vegard, can you find a way to say it that’s a little less gruesome?”

Vegard appeared to think it over. "No, I can’t. I don’t think he’s expecting us to survive.”

"No,” Bård agreed. He unbuttoned his pyjama top, wadded it up, and stuffed it in the pocket of his hoodie. "It gets easier, you know. To tell myself to play along. To clench my teeth and keep my face neutral. I think if I kept it up long enough, I might not be pretending.”

"Now who’s being gruesome?”

***

Bård and Vegard went back to the Chesterfield after that, and checked in with the crew. Ulf was sore but mending. The camera would take a few weeks to repair, so TV Norge was sending a new one, and it would arrive by the end of the week. By that time, Ulf should be okay to lift it without putting undue pressure on his stitches. If there was anything urgent, Bård and Vegard had the GoPro, and the glamour filter.

The brothers napped and showered and changed, and then met Melantha and Jessalyn at the Golem. Bård was expecting them to be the silly, tittering, decorative girls who had borne Vegard away and soothed his soul. But they were dressed down today, in layer upon layer of black, the tips of their ears concealed under stocking caps. They did insist on paying, though, and Jessalyn did give him an absolutely exquisite shoulder massage. She started on his head, too, but when her thumbs grazed his ears, Bård said, "You know, I feel bad that you’re standing back there with the rest of us here. Come back to the table and finish your coffee before it gets cold. Thank you, though. That was very nice.” 

She took her seat next to him. "You are very welcome. Anytime. Really.”

And then, the four of them began to talk in earnest. At first, Bård shot a few questioning looks at Vegard, but it became clear that his older brother had known what he was doing.

***

The thirty-first dawned clear and cold. Aruviel drilled the brothers until noon. They were clumsy from lack of sleep, but he only praised them--particularly Bård.

Then he sent them back to the hotel to change. At one, a jet black Alfa Romeo turned up at the Chesterfield. The elf who had come to fetch them on Thursday was driving. She took them to Det Blå Rommet, where Aruviel criticized their wardrobe choices, treated them to a very expensive lunch, and finally told them the plan.

"The svartalfar and all their misbegotten kin in this area hold their Samhain revels in a valley called Helgistjörð,” he said over wine-braised duck leg. "They are numerous, but cowardly. We have no hope of killing them all, but a proper strike by three valiant warriors will reduce their numbers and scatter the rest, and strike fear into their black hearts, and make them think twice before emerging once again to stain the clean light of day.”

"I see,” Bård said, prodding at a boar sausage with his fork. "So...assuming we all make it out of this alive, what’s next?”

"We make it known that the Chosen One has arisen. We inform the scores of lios alfar living in fear for their lives and their lines that there is hope against the svartalfar. We target the fiercest and most cunning svartalfar in the places where they are boldest. You are not alone, Bård.”

"Of course not. I have my brother.” Bård was aware that he was treading on thin ice, and kept his face as open and guileless as possible. Vegard, meanwhile, did not look up from his scallops and rapini. 

Aruviel’s mouth tightened into a hard little smile. "Yes, we’re all very lucky that you have Vegard. But you also have a network of resistance to the svartalfar tide--lios alfar, young and old, who have had enough, who will want to help you save our world. I can put you in touch with the right people, and give you the guidance you need to win the day. This is the beginning of something special, Bård.”

"It sounds special,” Bård said quietly.

The portion wasn’t a large one, but Bård couldn’t finish lunch. Vegard finished, though, and ordered dessert, and did not seem to begrudge Bård a few stolen forkfuls of dolce torinese that he barely tasted.

Afterwards, the Alfa Romeo returned them to the hotel. Aruviel had given them strict instructions to get some sleep. They did not.

***

At eleven-thirty, they met Aruviel on a hillside above Helgistjörð. Down below were the revels. Pavilions were set up. There was a bonfire, and the whoops and cries of the svartalfar carried upward.

"I was watching for you,” Aruviel said. "Where did you come from?” 

"We drove the van up,” Bård told him. "It took awhile to park somewhere where it wouldn’t be noticed.”

The elf handed them helmets and stiff leather armour that would give a modicum of protection to their torsos and thighs. On this went belts and scabbards, and then carefully designed holsters that would enable them to carry their staffs on their backs. These weren’t broom handles, now, but staves with wicked curved blades at each end. "You can’t fit through a door,” he cautioned, "but then you won’t have to. Use the sword for as long as you are able. If it becomes advantageous, spin the staves like I’ve been showing you, and you can wound a lot of svartalfar with a little effort. Aim for the throats.”

"Aim for the throats,” Vegard echoed softly, securing the holster to his back and helping Bård do the same. 

They did some simple warm-up exercises, to limber up their muscles in the cold air. Aruviel, perhaps unthinking, demonstrated a little bit of swordplay, the metal spinning and flashing in his hands. That moment of showing off was enough to convince Bård that Vegard was right about their skills. But then, they weren’t expected to be skilled; just loud and terrifying. 

Aruviel led them to a smooth slope. Behind him, Bård and Vegard exchanged a look of mingled relief and satisfaction. 

Together, standing with a safe distance between them, they arrayed themselves at the top of the slope, with Trondheim's svartalfar making merry down below. "Are you ready, Chosen One?” Aruviel asked.

"More than ready,” Bård said, unsheathing his sword. On the other side of Aruviel, Vegard drew his own weapon. And their teacher, with a look of noble solemnity, drew his.

"For the forces of light!" Linnael Aruviel bellowed.

"For a free Narnia!" Vegard shouted. 

"For the viewing public!" Bård thundered. 

And they ran down the hill, brandishing their swords. 

Bård and Vegard closely flanked Aruviel--closely enough, in fact, that they pushed him a little bit off his intended route down. He looked from side to side at them. "Spread out a little," he directed. "I need room to swing my sword. You're--"

Whatever he thought they were doing, he never got a chance to tell them. The ground gave way beneath his feet, and he let out a strangled cry.

Bård and Vegard both slowed to a stop, glanced back to make sure, and exchanged a high five. Then they went back to where Aruviel had disappeared.

He had surfaced, up to his shoulders in sludge in a perfectly square pit. He pulled off his helmet. "What is this?" he gasped. 

"A mixture of chocolate milk, lime jello, and liverwurst," Bård told him.

"It burns!" 

"And sriracha," Vegard added. 

Aruviel glared at Vegard. "You did this!"

"The digging was a collective effort. The jello was pretty much all me, though."

"I was the liverwurst wrangler," Bård put in.

Jessalyn had taken care of the chocolate milk. The brothers had only joked about the sriracha, but when the time came, it had been Melantha's contribution. They were not about to tell Aruviel any of that, though. 

"You'd betray our cause for...for cheap laughs?" the elf sputtered.

"Terrorism is a pretty bad cause," Vegard said. 

"Yeah, I'm just not feeling the 'Chosen One' vibe," Bård said, sheathing his sword. 

Aruviel tried to haul himself out of the pit. "I thought you were warriors!”

Bård unbuckled his weapons and his armour, and tossed them on the ground in disgust. "It was bad enough when we thought you didn't care if we were terrible because it was a suicide mission. But that wasn't it at all, was it? We didn't need to be good because they're all unarmed." He kicked the helmet at Aruviel. The elf ducked to avoid it, and the motion sent him sliding back into the pit.

"I do know seven ways to kill a man,” Vegard offered. He too unbuckled his weapons and let them slide to the ground. Then he turned away, and started walking down the hill. "And,” he added over his shoulder, "four hundred and eighty-three ways to save him.”

"You could have been heroes!”

"But we talked about it, and we're not,” Bård said, striding down to join Vegard. "We're tricksters.”

***

When he caught up, Vegard was looking at his phone. "Text from the girls. The video turned out very well. They’re waiting by the dessert table.” 

"Do they know us or what?” Bård grinned. "Hey, Jessalyn knows I’m taken, right?”

"Yeah, I overheard them talking about it. I don’t know if she’s hoping that’s flexible, or if she just sees it as her sacred duty to put you back together as best she can. They were both pretty good support when...when I was with them before.”

Bård thought about it for a bit. "Well, I won’t say no to baklava, but revenge was pretty sweet too. I think I’m okay now.” 

On their way down, they said a quiet word to the svartalfr who was in the sound booth by the stage. She radioed the organizers, who promised to send someone up for Aruviel.


	12. FISK-MENNESKER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fallen angles / Out of space / The horror from the depths / Extraordinary uses of Norwegian flora #7: Arctic flowers / Justice served / Ain’t no party like a shoggoth party

"We're here in Vertshusmunn to see Hovind Elsker-Håndverket, an antiquarian who specializes in old manuscripts from the seventeenth century," Bård said, grinning into the camera. 

Vegard had to think hard to remember his line. "He is by all accounts a very unique, very interesting man, in a very interesting town."

"Cut," Nico said. "Vegard, your eyes were closed."

"Sorry, sorry."

"Okay, go again?"

"We're here in Vertshusmunn to see Hovind Elsker-Håndverket, an antiquarian who specializes in old manuscripts from the seventeenth century."

"He is by all accounts a very unique, very interesting man. And the town is pretty interesting too."

"Okay. That'll work," Nico sighed. "Any particular reason, Vegard, why you're shielding your eyes when you face _north_?"

Vegard rubbed his forehead, and kept his gaze fixed on the crumbling asphalt of the road that led to the quay. "It's the cathedral. It makes my head hurt."

"Look, I know your beliefs, I respect your beliefs, I might even share your beliefs. Let it go while we're filming, okay?"

"It's not that," Vegard protested. "Come on, Nico, turn around and look at it, really look at it. Don't you see anything wrong?"

Nico turned. "What? There's nothing--" 

Vegard felt a light touch on his mind, for the barest moment. "Yes there is," Bård said, staring up at the cathedral. "He's not kidding." He was squinting, and his eyes were watering. "Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Gah!" He turned away, wincing. 

Ulf turned the camera, raised his head for a moment, and then ducked behind the camera again. "Yeah. Oh, god. It's fine on film, but when I look..." He pointed the camera away, to the quay and the fishing boats on the slate-grey sea. 

Nico lowered his head, and turned east to face the town centre. "I want to say no, I don't see anything, and I really don't, but suddenly I'm sick to my stomach." 

"I'm fine," Knut said, "but I've been looking at the equipment the whole time."

Desultorily, the quintet turned and trudged eastward up the hill, back into town. It had snowed that morning, and people's front yards were still frosted white. The lawns didn't look like they had grass in them; rather, the ground cover was some sort of creeping vine, tinged pink and purple and a sort of orangey blue. 

"It's the angles," Bård panted, keeping his head resolutely turned away from the north side of town. "They're all wrong."

"Shut up, shut up," Vegard moaned.

Meanwhile, there were people heading to and from the quay. They passed a family of four on the sidewalk. "Are you lot all right?" a man asked. His mouth was very wide, and his eyes bulged a little. 

"We'll be okay," Nico said. "Just, ah, needed some fresh air.”

"New to the place?” the woman asked. She, like her husband, had a wide mouth and bulging eyes. One would think that their kids would be right out of luck, but the little ones looked reasonably normal. "It takes awhile to feel all right here. You'll get used to it with time.”

"Thanks,” Ulf said thinly.

"Graves' Disease?” Vegard suggested, when they were out of earshot. 

"Or inbreeding,” Bård said. "It's a small village. Probably not a lot of choice.”

***

They managed to make it to the address Elsker-Håndverket had given them, a tidy little yellow wooden cottage on Styggedomvegen, and rang the bell.

Hovind Elsker-Håndverket had a thin, long, dour, ascetic face. When they introduced themselves, he didn’t so much shake hands as close his long fingers ever so gently around theirs. "Many times, I considered calling you and warning you off,” he confessed. "Something prevented me--a fey mood, or a whisper of dread, or a fear that the two of you would consider me paranoid, and laugh at an old man. Still, I cannot pretend that your coming has not filled me with foreboding.”

"If you're having second thoughts, we can go,” Vegard offered. He hadn't felt this sick since Brandbu. 

"No! You have seen too much already. You have breathed the foul air of Vertshusmunn. It is very likely that the change is already working in your bones, as it has spent these long years working in mine.”

"We’ve been here for about forty-five minutes,” Bård pointed out. 

"And yet you have seen it; I can tell by your faces. The non-Euclidian geometry of the great cathedral, the architecture of madness itself. Do come in. I fear that my time is short, for the fearsome inhabitants of this town, with their unholy allegiances, hunger ever more desperately for my blood, but I will tell you what I can.” 

The house was small and dim, with papers and books stacked on every available surface. Elsker-Håndverket hadn't quite lost control of his collection yet, as Vegard had seen so many other times, but it was plain that he had a lot going on, and very little room for it. At random, Vegard plucked a notebook off a pile of them, and opened it up. The man's handwriting was weird and spiky and didn't do a lot for a headache, but a quick glance showed that Elsker-Håndverket was fond of underlining and multiple exclamation points. 

Elsker-Håndverket made them tea using bottled water and teabags sealed in foil. The sugar was in a sealed plastic container. The cookies he put out had also been sealed in plastic containers--for awhile, it tasted like. 

"My father came to this area in the fifties," he said. "A meteorite fell just offshore in the 1840s, and stories were told of its curious effects on the nearby flora and fauna. He wished to study these effects, but he soon discovered that the people here had become monstrously degraded by the hideous energies. Moreover, the changes had driven them to seek out forbidden knowledge from the far corners of the Earth, warping their minds even as the energies corrupted their bodies."

"Bummer," Bård said. "But what does forbidden knowledge have to do with meteorites?"

Elsker-Håndverket leaned forward. "It seems that this is not the first time in Earth's history that this has happened."

"But why is knowledge about that forbidden?" Vegard asked. "It seems like that would be the most useful knowledge to have, really."

"You'd think that," Elsker-Håndverket shot back, "but then all you have to do is look at the cathedral. At their bulging eyes and thin lipless mouths. At their unspeakable rites, practiced during the full moon."

"That's tonight," Vegard said. 

"Astonishing coincidence," Bård observed dryly. 

"Just so." Elsker-Håndverket said, suddenly not meeting their eyes. "I didn't want to be alone when they came for me."

"Why would they be coming for you tonight?" Bård asked.

"Last month I infiltrated their unholy ceremonies. I was discovered, and fled. All month I have waited for them to exact their revenge. It comes tonight.”

"You could leave,” Bård suggested. "We have space in the van.”

Elsker- Håndverket shook his head. "Even if I could bring myself to abandon my life's work, dear boy, to flee would be to unleash their poison on the world. For I, too, have lived here all my life. By carefully avoiding the local food and water, I have managed to keep the worst of the change at bay, but I have breathed the air, walked the town's corrupted soil. I feel the sea's call in my soul, seductive as a lover's whisper. If I survive this night, and the nights to come, I fear that I shall one day obey. The only solution is to warn the world: stay away from Vertshusmunn.” He stared straight into the camera. "Burn this place, salt the Earth, let nothing grow here. Do not yield to the temptation of the mystery; that way lies only madness, and the tearing of the thin veil of civilization.”

Bård hastily changed the subject by asking him about his books, and he showed them shelf upon shelf of ancient tomes, with consonant-clogged names and flaking bindings that Vegard really hoped were leather. None of them were in any variation of Norwegian or even English, but Elsker-Håndverket assured the boys that they contained unspeakable abominations.

At one point, their host excused himself to use the bathroom. "What do we do?” Vegard whispered.

"Do you believe him about some cult coming for him?” Nico asked.

"I don't know,” Bård said. "He seems a bit over the top. On the other hand, we're not exactly in a position to disbelieve him, are we?”

"And that cathedral,” Ulf added with a shudder.

"Well, if something is going to happen,” Bård said, "we can't just leave him to it.”

"On the other other hand,” Vegard said, "I'm not very keen on the idea of hanging around if we know that something is going to happen.”

"Realistically,” said Knut, "what do you think he expects us to be able to do?”

"Right,” Vegard said. "Are the cultists going to come around tonight, and go, Oh, but it would be frightfully rude to sacrifice him to our loathsome deities while he's got company, let's give it another month?”

"Maybe there are only four of them,” Bård suggested, "and they're all terribly scrawny.”

Ulf said, "If he wants us to save him, I don't think we can. But if he's serious about sending that warning, we need to get out now.”

"If he won't leave, and we can't stay, we're at an impasse,” Nico concluded. "Boys, when he gets back, get ready to wrap it up.”

Vegard thought privately that perhaps the man just didn't want to face the horrors alone. He understood, but when he weighed his life against a few moments of comfort for a doomed stranger, he really did have to go.

Elsker-Håndverket returned a few moments later, to find the brothers on their feet and the crew filming. "Hovind, you've been a very good host,” Bård said, shaking his hand, "and we've learned an awful lot about the town of Vertshusmunn and the surrounding area.”

"Yes, thank you so much for sharing your time with us,” Vegard said, also stepping in for a handshake. 

"It's brought a measure of comfort to my weary soul,” Elsker-Håndverket said, with an air of gentle resignation. "Thank you, young gentlemen, for listening, and for carrying my warning to the rest of the world. And now, I suggest that you travel with all speed, because night is falling.”

The crew left first, and filmed their exit. The van was back at the hotel, but they’d been running late and hadn’t checked in or unloaded their bags. Night was indeed falling, the buildings and people and strange twisted trees just black shapes against a sky rapidly going to charcoal, although if Vegard needed any help navigating, the cathedral to the north felt like a raw wound. 

"Vegard,” Bård said, and there was something funny about his voice. Vegard looked at his brother, and then looked back at where his brother was looking. 

Elsker-Håndverket’s house was surrounded by squat shapes.

"Bloody hell,” Vegard said, his own voice ragged. He Bård and reached an unspoken agreement. "Go on and check in,” he called to the crew. "If we’re not back by morning, get out, and show the tapes.”

Nico and Ulf and Knut turned, and stood there. "Guys...” Ulf began.

"Don’t do anything stupid,” Nico said, and turned around, and trudged back to the hotel.

Bård and Vegard bobbed their heads in assent, and turned back to face the villagers who had the house surrounded.

Two of them were already leading Elsker-Håndverket out with his hands bound. A third advanced to meet the brothers. "We gave you the chance to get out,” she said. "Take it. Believe me, this is not your fight.”

"What are you going to do with him?” Bård asked.

"Technically, that’s still to be decided. Practically, I think people are going to demand that he replace the offering he scared off last month.”

"Offering?” Vegard said.

At that moment, hands closed over his shoulders, and Bård’s. "Too many questions,” said a slightly mushy male voice behind them. "If you’re so eager to learn, you can find out firsthand.”

"Truls,” the other villager said, in tones of exasperation. 

"You think they’ll let us alone now? You heard them--their crew is going to bring the world down on us. Jutka, Terje, go to the hotel. Make sure the other three--”

"No!” Bård shouted.

"Absolutely not,” the woman said frostily. "If everyone disappears, do you think the drylanders will just forget about them? When does it stop, Truls?”

"When the slaughter stops,” Truls snapped back, and Vegard felt the hands tighten their grip. "Fine. I’ll spare their precious crew. But these two join the offering.” Vegard felt himself driven forward. He offered token resistance, more to measure the strength of his captors than anything else, but he didn’t think he would get more than one chance to overpower them, and it made no sense to waste that chance before he had some kind of strategy.

As they were marched down to the main street, Plateepitelvegen, Vegard cast about for something, anything. They were headed back down to the quay, and if they got him and Bård indoors or into a vehicle, their chances of survival went way down. 

There was one side street between them and the quay now. This was going to be their last chance. : _Bård? Bård?_ : Nothing. In the shadow of the cathedral, he was having trouble quieting his mind down enough to focus. It was like an antenna broadcasting revulsion.

A young woman and her three children were coming up the side street. Vegard lunged away from his captors, tugged at Bård’s arm on the way past, and ran to the woman. "Help us! Help us, please!”

The children hid behind her skirts. She reached forward, and took his arm. Her fingers were webbed. "You scared my children,” she said fiercely, clutching his sleeve. She was much stronger than she looked. With a cry of fright, he tried to get away by taking off his jacket, but she seized his other wrist, and held him until Truls could catch up. Her eyes--large and strangely pale--softened. "You brought this on yourselves,” she said, as Truls dragged him away.

And that was his chance. Bård shot him a scared, pained look. 

Vegard tried to remain stoic, but then they took another turn, and he saw where they were taking him. He started to struggle again. "No! Please, no!”

Truls only gripped him tighter. Another villager caught up his legs, and with his brother propelled along beside him, looking on in horror, they carried Vegard over the threshold of the cathedral, bucking and thrashing and screaming--and then, suddenly, limp and silent.

***

He’d been unravelled, and waking was a process of carefully knitting himself up again. The darkness was complete, but the space he was in sounded large. Something somewhere was dripping, and the air had a mineral smell to it. He was lying on a rough dirt surface, and his hands and feet were securely but not painfully bound.

"Vegard.” Bård’s voice was close. 

"Bård?”

His brother sounded pleased with himself. "I thought I felt you come back online. How do you feel?”

Vegard thought about it. "Still bad, but better. Kind of...stretched out.” Experimentally, he thought of the cathedral. It produced queasiness, but not existential panic. "I think I... adjusted. How about you?”

"I’m all right. I was worried, naturally, but everything else got a lot better when you fainted.”

"Gee, glad to be of service,” he said raggedly. "How long was I out?”

"I don’t even know,” Bård confessed. "I can’t see my watch or get to my phone. A couple of hours?”

“Calling that a faint is a bit of an understatement, Bård. Where are we?” 

"Underneath the cathedral. They took us down to the crypt, and just kept going on down. I think there are caves in the cliffs. I didn’t see much, but this part down here didn’t look built.”

"It has existed for untold millennia!” Elsker-Håndverket’s voice startled Vegard, and he had to bury his face in his shoulder to hold back a fit of giggles. 

"Vegard?” Bård called anxiously. "Are you throwing up?”

"No, no. I’m fine.”

"Good,” Bård said, with a little laugh of his own. 

"How can you two laugh at a time like this?” Elsker-Håndverket demanded.

"Because,” Vegard gasped out, "we don’t particularly want to see...”

"...how this lot transforms, either!” Bård finished. 

"Hovind,” Vegard said, when they’d sobered a little, "any idea what they’re going to do to us?” 

"We will be offered to the Deep Ones.”

"And what exactly does that mean?” Bård pressed.

"Aherm,” Elsker-Håndverket said. "Well...er...”

"Is it some kind of sex thing?” Vegard said dubiously.

"There is always a blasphemous mingling of essences, whether it be in body, in mind, or in soul.”

"That doesn’t answer the question,” Bård said.

"Fine! Yes, sometimes it’s ‘a sex thing,’ as your foreign friend so delicately puts it.”

"Um,” Vegard said, holding up an index finger that he was aware no one could see.

"Brother,” Bård corrected. "Completely domestic brother. So sometimes the offering is a sex thing. And sometimes?”

"None of the other options are better.”

They sat, in the darkness, for awhile. 

"So, Bård,” Vegard said suddenly, "what are the islands of the Tristan de Cunha archipelago?”

"Tristan obviously. Inaccessible. Stoltenhoff. Gough Island. Middle. Nightingale? I think that's it. Name ten Arctic flowers.”

"Arctic mouse-ear, hawkweed-leaf saxifrage, Lapland poppy, Lapland buttercup, glacier buttercup...um...Boreal Jacobs-ladder, Arctic bell-heather, milky whitlow-grass, boreal stitchwort, and um, the polar willow. Which does flower. Do you think we still did the right thing, Bård?”

"What?”

"Knowing that there’s stuff like this in the world, do you think we were right to protect it from Aruviel?”

Bård was silent for a long time. And then he said, "Not that I think anything here ever had anything to fear from him, but I think what Aruviel wanted us to do was wrong. I don’t care who’s more wrong; I still couldn’t do what he wanted me to do. Whether it’s svartalfar or whatever these Deep Ones are on the other side of the scales, I can’t think of anything that would make it...not wrong. Could you?”

"No,” Vegard said. 

They lapsed into silence again. Then Elsker-Håndverket’s voice said, "Who has the epithet ‘Crawling Chaos'--Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, or Tsathoggua?”

***

They had no way of measuring how much time had passed when light appeared in front of them, growing closer and closer. Vegard saw for the first time that they were indeed in a natural cave with a high ceiling--a karst cave of breathtaking beauty, its walls and ceilings festooned with speleothems of calcium carbonate. Some of them looked a little unsettling, like the high cascade of dripstone that looked like bulbous heads with fringes of tentacles hanging off them. The floor, though, looked like someone had deliberately brought in gravel to make it flat.

Truls emerged from behind a pillar, carrying a flashlight. He was at the head of a party of villagers who lifted the three prisoners firmly but not roughly, and carried them back behind the rock wall, and out through the caves onto a bone-white beach.

The night was clear and frosty, the moon full and high. Seven poles sat equally spaced along the beach, some of them leaning badly. Bård, Vegard, and Elsker-Håndverket were guided to the middle three. Between the beach and the quay, several dozen villagers had gathered. In the moonlight, Vegard could see that they all had the same squat bodies, wide mouths, receding chins, and bulging eyes. 

"We have families," Bård pleaded as two villagers tied him to the pillar.

"So did I," Truls said. "A husband, two wives, and a son just learning to walk. Elsker-Håndverket’s father blew them up.”

"I'm sorry," Vegard said, and then yelped as a rope pulled tight around his middle.

"Sorry doesn't bring them back."

Out at sea, there was a loud, ululating cry.

"Early,” Truls muttered, half to himself. He pulled at the knots, and seemed satisfied. Then he shambled through the sand until he was standing in line with both the prisoners and the spectators. "We’re here to see justice served!” he cried. 

Vegard heard a commotion behind him, but couldn’t turn around to see what was going on. But a woman’s voice shouted, "This isn’t justice, Truls!”

And then, off shore, a swell built. Truls turned, and gaped. "Really early!”

The villagers had run forward to greet the swell. Massive eyes with hourglass-shaped pupils broke the surface, and swivelled to meet theirs. Tentacles the width of a big man’s thigh snaked out of the water, waving.

"Kraken,” Vegard said in a small voice. 

"No,” Bård said, as the tentacles rose out of the water. "That’s the head.”

Basing its proportions on human proportions, it was easily as tall as Oslo Plaza. It rose and rose and rose, a massive muscled chest breaking the ocean surface, tiny ridiculous wings shaking free of the spray. Those tiny ridiculous wings had to have a fifty-foot span. 

When it was up to its waist in the water, it raised gargantuan arms, clenched fists with webbed fingers and claws the length of Vegard’s forearm. It opened its toothed maw, and spoke.

" _IT. PASSED. WE. **WON!** _ ”

There was a collective gasp, and a moment of stunned silence. Vegard was suddenly grateful for the cathedral. If that hadn’t recalibrated him, he was pretty sure that the thing’s voice would have killed him. As it was, his nose started to run, and when he sniffled, he was not surprised to taste blood. Beside him, it looked like Bård was having the same response.

Then the people of Vertshusmunn began talking all at once. Fishy faces were transformed by joy. Some of them wept. Truls looked like he was going to, certainly.

"What passed? What passed?” Vegard demanded. 

"The SULA Act?” Truls said, looking up for confirmation. 

" _EQUAL_ ,” said the thing in the water. " _MY. CHILDREN. ARE. EQUAL. EVERYONE’S. CHILDREN. ARE. EQUAL_.”

"Madness, this is madness!” Elsker-Håndverket said.

Truls turned and considered him, and poised a webbed, clawed hand to strike. 

"It’s really not,” Vegard said, in a rush. "It’s wonderful.”

Bård added, "We’ve been hearing from people. It’s been a long time coming.”

Elsker-Håndverket looked from one to the other. "Seriously? You two support this? Placing these mistakes of nature on equal footing with...with the rest of us?”

"They’re not mistakes!” Vegard cried, and was a little amazed by the sharpness in his own voice.

Truls bent close to him. "What are we then, boy?”

"People,” Bård said. "Just people.”

Truls grinned from ear to ear. His teeth were sharp, like little inward-pointing hooks. "You know what? Let us leave the offerings for another day. For the moment, let us be just people together. Tonight, we celebrate!” With a claw, he swiped at the ropes binding them, and they were free. "You'll behave yourselves, won't you?"

"Absolutely," Bård vowed.

As soon as Truls was lost in the crowd, Vegard said, "Why did you say that? We have to get out of here." 

"A hero always keeps his word,” Bård said.

"Yes, but--"

"A _hero_ keeps his word.”

"Ah.”

***

In the hours before sunrise, one of Azathoth’s amorphous flute-players, its trembling muculent skin studded with pebbles and grass, shambled away from the revelry, and joined a robed man who had been hailed and then introduced to everyone as Abdul Alhazred, and who had never bothered to correct them. He had complicated blue tattoos on his face, a fierce smile, and an unearthly light in his eyes, which were, in the dim flickering light of the bonfires, a stygian black.

The flute player convulsed, and then moulted, leaving its old skin on the ground. Its new form was pallid, damp, and shivering. "Bleargh,” it said. "Next time, you get to be under the scummy blanket.”

The man with the black eyes picked up a handful of dirty snow, and scrubbed the tattoos off his face. "And you get to be the monstrous racialized Other? It’s a deal. Although...I did get to autograph someone’s copy of the _Necronomicon_. I signed it ‘Love, kisses, and eldritch abominations.’” 

"But you signed Abdul whatsisface’s name, I hope.”

Vegard rubbed his face. "I believe I used _yours_. I remember dotting the å with a little heart.” He took off a couple of the robes he’d liberated from the cathedral. "Here. Get out of that wet stuff and put these on.”

Bård stripped off his wet clothes--sliming the blanket had been good cover, and it was a wool blanket , but it had soaked everything underneath and now the wind cut right through it. He threw on the robes, and bundled his wet clothes under his arm, and the two of them trudged back to the centre of town. 

"Any word from Elsker-Håndverket?” Vegard asked.

Bård shrugged. "He’s a dreadful flautist, not that Azathoth cares. Last I saw him, he was chatting up one of those blobby things.”

"Boy or girl?”

"I don’t think they have sexes. But they were clearly into each other.”

"Seriously?”

Bård nodded. "Offering or not, I think he’s going to be a lot happier here from now on.”

"He’s going to change,” Vegard pointed out. "He was so afraid of changing.”

"Everything changes,” Bård said. 

A smile of pure joy touched Vegard’s features. "That’s right. It _passed_.”

"What does that mean, now?”

"I don’t know. I hope it means things get better.”

"I hope it means Aruviel lost,” Bård said, kicking savagely at a clod of frozen earth. "I hope he’s sobbing into his mead right now. I hope he’s looking for razor blades. I just met Cthulhu, and Cthulhu is a nicer person than Linnael Aruviel.”

Vegard looked over at him with some dismay. But what he said was, "It means Gisela won.” He rubbed his arm thoughtfully, remembering a searing pain, and the snatches of rumour he’d heard here and there of the two humans who’d given their lives to save the SULA negotiator, and their subsequent resurrection with what he gathered was an important bit of magic. "I think that means we won too.”

When they got to the inn, Ulf and Nico were in bed, but Knut had waited up for them in the lobby. He’d saved them half a Grandiosa pizza. Vegard gave Bård the first shower. He settled for a quick but thorough washing of his hands in the lobby washroom before taking half of the pizza. When Bård emerged, scrubbed and wearing dry long underwear, Vegard took the next shower, and fell into bed, full and warm and happy.


	13. HELLIGTOSKMANNEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fading light / Reunion / An unorthodox cologne (reprise) / A long story / The curse / Exceedingly bad kleather

Vegard looked out over the quiet resort town, at the empty snow-covered streets, at the pools of golden light cast by the street lamps. At this time of year, the sun was down shortly after three, and right now it was five. He caught himself searching the darkness for movement, and spent a few seconds wondering why. "I've been forgetting," he said sadly.

"Me too," Bård said, muting the television set. "I spent hours the other day trying to remember what I'd been for Hallowe'en. I was going, I _know_ I dressed up... And then something with a lot of very thin legs went walking down the street, wearing headphones and snapping its fingers--it had a lot of fingers, too--and everything came back. It was armour. For Hallowe'en I put on armour."

The Underjordiske had been occupying a smaller and smaller corner of Vegard's thoughts lately anyway. He'd seen far fewer of them since the snow had come, and after Nico had nixed Elsker-Håndverket's bit and declared the Aruviel footage unusable, it didn't seem right to waste the crew's time seeking them out. And while he had been honoured to be of help, he couldn't pretend that they had ever actually needed him. But his family did. He'd been spending every moment he could with Helene and Emma. There was still a lot of work to do on the new house, but Helene wanted it to look good for Christmas. It was going to be their haven, their quiet beautiful refuge from a world that was just too much sometimes. "The effects of the mead were supposed to last from Solstice to Solstice. It's fading. We're not even going to get to keep the memories."

"I, for one, will be relieved," Bård said. "No more ear-fondling. No more easily offended swordsmen. No more horrors from the depths or naiads in the bathroom. Oh--I didn't tell you about that?"

"No," Vegard said. "You know, they'll still be in the bathroom, but you won't be able to see them."

Bård shrugged. "It would be terrible if I couldn't see them but I knew they were there, but I won't know they're there. And I imagine you can't wait for the world to go back to its proper shape."

Vegard shook his head. "The world will be the same shape it always was; we just won't be able to see all of it. And I guess that's true in a lot of ways we don't know and will never know, but to have something uncovered like that, and then covered up again...I'll admit, it will be nice to not have the bottom continuously dropping out from under me, but it makes me a little sorry, too." He sighed, and took a deep breath, and said, "I'm thinking of staying in Oslo an extra night, and going to Skygge for the Solstice. As a last hurrah."

Bård sat up on his bed. "Seriously? What are you going to tell Helene?"

"The truth. That there are some people in town that I have worked with, that I have become fond of, that I do not expect to see ever again after this night. If it really bothers her, I won't go. Not being with her will be bad. But being with her and wishing I was somewhere else would be worse."

***

There was snow on the ground and the temperature was minus ten, but Skygge was very much as he remembered it. Snow was meticulously cleared from around the exits, and its permits were still up to date. Vegard thought, as he entered the foyer, of the person he'd been the first time he went through these doors. It felt like several lifetimes ago now. Of course, that was probably one of the points of marking the Solstices; they were as far apart in the year as one could get: light and dark, hot and cold, day and night. He had come here for the first time an innocent, and now he was as experienced as he was ever going to get, wasn't he? He checked his parka, paid his kroner, underwent a patdown, and entered the club.

The first ten minutes were dreadful. He stood awash in a sea of chaotic sound and colour, watching the dancing bodies all around him, and felt very keenly that he didn't belong here. He was an intruder in this world, and soon it would shut him out forever. But he'd sacrificed a night with Helene to be here. He owed it to her not to waste it. 

He would stay for an hour, he decided. He would saturate his senses, fill up on it, get tired of it. Then he would leave, and go back to Bergen. It would be a nice gesture, to choose to leave the magic behind, rather than to have it ripped from him. 

He looked around at the sea of beautiful people around him, and tried to dance a little, but next to their ethereal grace he felt clumsy, too solid. He gave up dancing for the sake of dancing, and just used it as a way to get through the crowd, to the bar. There, a thrill went through him as he saw a familiar face. "Kit?" 

"Vegard!" The Japanese man was off his seat in a flash, and he enveloped Vegard in a warm hug. 

"I didn't expect to see you here," Vegard said. 

"No, it's not my usual milieu, for sure. But...to tell you the truth, I thought you and your brother might turn up here, and I did want to see you one last time. And if I showed up and you didn't, at least I would have tried, but if I didn't show up, I would always be wondering if I had missed my chance."

Vegard laughed with delight. "That's very close to what I was thinking." There were empty seats on either side of Kit, and he sat. 

"Where's your brother?" Kit asked.

"He's not with me," Vegard said.

Kit's eyes widened. "Oh, no..."

"No, no. He's fine. He wanted to spend tonight with his family."

"And you aren't with yours?"

"I'm aiming to spend the rest of a good long life with them, but for all this, today's the last day. Ever." He met Kit's eyes. "The last six months have been really... incredible. Thank you for that."

"It was a pleasure, Vegard."

"But I've wanted to ask, ever since I learned what was going on: why us? What did you expect to happen?"

"Most people treat me like, like an intruder," Kit said. "The silly interloper who can't be expected to have real thoughts and real feelings. I used to be somebody back in Japan, you know. I used to be respected. Sometimes humoured, but mostly respected." His blue eyes filled with tears. "You and your brother told me I was wonderful. I wanted to give you something wonderful in return. I thought I could put you on the map. And then perhaps you could put us on the map."

"None of the tapes are usable," Vegard said glumly. "None of them. We did try, again and again."

Kit's shoulders sagged a little. "I will admit that I was aware of the possibility. But even if none of the other humans got to see it, you did. And maybe that's enough."

"I'm honoured that you chose us," Vegard said, feeling a little misty himself. "And I've truly enjoyed the last few months. It's...taken me out of my comfort zones in ways I never knew I needed. I just wish you'd told us what it was. What was happening to us. Who was who."

"I told you as much as I could, as much as I knew," Kit said, swirling the ice around in his drink. "You were asking good questions. Very detailed questions. You were very excited. I thought you had enough to go on, and could fill in the blanks on your own."

Vegard sat bolt upright, eyes large. "You told us. That afternoon."

"Yes, of course. What I could. I'm sorry that it wasn't enough."

"It was probably plenty, but we were so gooned on mead, neither of us remembers anything."

"Really? Really truly?" Kit's face fell. "You were awfully giggly. But you were fine, after. Every so often Gerd would flit by and tell me the news. She kept an ear out for gossip about you. I was so proud."

Vegard gave him a chagrined smile. "We made it up as we went along. To be honest, during the low bits I...I ended up thinking some uncharitable things about you, Kit. For which I'm truly sorry."

"Forgiven," Kit said, unhesitatingly. "I can only imagine what they say about me."

"Lady Thorne said you were a trickster."

"Well, that part is true. It's a fact of my biology. Even the things I do with the purest of intentions end up...well, you've seen now."

Vegard eyed Kit's jawline. "And a girl."

Kit grimaced. "Sometimes biology plays some tricks of its own."

"Seriously?" From behind his hand, Vegard let out a nervous laugh. "Hey, did you say you were from Japan, or Thailand?"

The air in the room shifted, just a little. "You probably can't even imagine, can you?" Kit sighed. "It would serve you right if I--" He broke off and smiled. Vegard knew that smile. It was a Bård smile, and it always meant trouble.

"What? _What?_ I'm a man, and I feel like a man. There's nothing you or anyone can do to change that."

"Yeah," Kit said, with a huge and glittering grin, "tell me _all_ about that, why don't you? And now tell me how you'd feel if people around you kept getting it wrong. Because I'm sure I could change _that_." He tapped his chin with a forefinger. "How would you like to be...Elaine?"

"Not much," Vegard admitted.

"Then behave yourself!" Kit's smile stopped being vulpine, turned shy again, and the strangeness in the room, whatever it was, was gone. He glanced around the room. "I must admit, there are parts of this that I don't miss...and parts that I wonder how I ever stayed away from. I don't like the crowds, but I do like the view. Does that make sense?"

"Certainly," Vegard said, happy to be on safer ground. 

"Like...her." Kit pointed. 

Vegard started out following Kit's finger, and stopped.

"Vegard? Vegard, what is it?"

"Trouble. I think. Look, but don't be obvious. White with red cape, green with gold cape."

"Yes?"

"They walk like they're armed. They walk like I walk when I'm armed, but...stealthy about it."

Someone jostled the red-caped one, and Kit made a soft noise. 

"Eyes forward!" Vegard hissed, through a bright smile. "Look happy! What is it?"

Kit pasted a smile on his own face. It wasn't terribly convincing. "Elfshot. He's armed with elfshot. Lots of it. It's just a little barb, but it'll dissolve an elf from the inside out in thirty seconds. If you pull it out, it goes for you. There's probably enough in there to take out this entire club."

"Oh god," Vegard said, and the smile slipped before returning, a shadow of its former self.

"And don't you get any ideas, either. It'll kill a human too, just not as quickly. And it hurts."

"I know," Vegard said. "Unfortunately I have experience. Who's in charge here?"

"Audhild Kristtorn, last I heard. In the office up there."

"Okay." Vegard lifted a hand. "Whiskey, please," he said to the bartender. Kit gave him a quizzical look, and he explained, "I need to get up there without alerting them." When he'd paid and received his drink, he took a mouthful of the amber liquid, and swished it around. Then he stuck his fingers in the glass and dabbed whiskey behind his ears, at his wrists, and under his jawline. He dipped in again and sprinkled his shirt, and then finished by spitting the mouthful back into the glass. Then he handed his phone to Kit. Smiling, gesturing sloppily, he said, "Look as mellow as possible, so they don't catch on. If you can, text whatever authorities there are. Let them know. And if it all goes wrong, I've been honoured to have you as a friend, Kit." He threw an arm around the man, and then stumbled to his feet, taking his glass with him. 

Now, caught in the press of the crowd, he saw others. They had discreet earpieces, they were spaced well apart from each other, they didn't interact with their fellow elves, and they held their shoulders square and their arms close to their bodies. 

He shouted, he danced a little, he spilled his drink on himself. A woman with blue hair grabbed him by the collar and kissed him. The tongue that she slipped him was forked, but he managed to kiss back convincingly, he thought. Eventually the crowd carried him where he wanted to go. "I'm s'posed to see someone up there," he shouted, breathing fumes all over the lone bouncer posted at the foot of the stairs. He bobbed his eyebrows up and down. "A lady, if you know what I mean. Hoping she'll let me play for her."

The bouncer rolled her eyes a little, but motioned with her head that she should go up. At the last moment, though, she grabbed his sleeve. "Be careful, human. Show respect. Watch your name. And don't sign anything until you've sobered up."

He nodded, touched by the little kindness. And instead of stumbling on the stairs, as he'd planned, he simply walked up with exaggerated care.

***

A human stood in the doorway. He looked familiar, and then Kristtorn realized that the last time she'd seen him, he'd been dead.

She advanced on him, and he flinched but didn't back up. " _You_ , human," she said, "are either a man of uncommon valour, or a fool."

He leaned on the doorframe with a brilliant drunken smile, and said, "Don't let on. Lios alfar, armed, organized, at least five."

She threw an arm around him and joined him on the catwalk with a sinking feeling, gesturing grandly at the crowd. "How can you tell?"

"They have earpieces, and...and...they walk like they're armed, and Kit saw--" He leaned closer, and dropped his voice. "--elfshot." He started giggling, and used his chin to indicate heads in the crowd. She saw. But when she knew what she was looking for, she counted more than five. 

She patted him on the head, and drew him away from the railing. When she was in her office, she grabbed her radio and said, "Gunhilde, Stefan, Code Burdock. At least nine. Leather armour. Look for earpieces. Be discreet and be careful." Then she summoned the dálki.

From the catwalk, Kristtorn and Vegard watched the crowd flow around the nine. It was plain, from above, that they were evenly spaced out, and holding these positions. Gunhilde, from her position on the stairs, gave a nod. Kristtorn nodded back. Gunhilde spoke a single word into the radio, and suddenly each of the nine was grabbed securely by two dancers. The music cut abruptly, emergency lights flooded the dance floor in a hot white glare, and the remaining security staff started evacuating people.

"This is how it's supposed to work," Kristtorn said triumphantly, over the hubbub. "If you'd come to me last time, you could have saved yourself a lot of pain. And me an awful lot of explaining to my sister-in-law."

"It wouldn't have helped Gisela," he said. "I didn't know what to look for or who to go to, and I almost didn't notice until it was too late."

"Fair point," she said. 

Eight of the nine were in custody. The last one was fighting. He'd wrenched a length of steel pipe from the wall and was using it as a staff, to hold off the bouncers. "Aruviel," Vegard said softly.

"That's the middle son of Danariel Vinael," Kristtorn corrected. More quietly, she said, "And you want to be careful about throwing that name around." She couldn't stand the man, but he'd rented one of the private rooms tonight, and she didn't need him yattering in the Samkoma about persecution again. 

"No, I mean, he used Aruviel's move." He gave her a sharp look, as if something were dawning on him. "Linnael Aruviel trained him."

She hauled him back into her office, and closed the door. "How do you know?" she demanded. "Be very careful. Very _very_ careful."

"Because he trained me. Pretended to try to, at any rate. And he really did train my brother. He used some sort of, of pain-staff on him. The...Kjolstaff?"

She stared at him. "Kvølstafur?"

"Could be. There was a matching tiara. Circlet. Whatever. Anyway, after he'd used the staff on my brother, he taught him that move. He said it was his move." The horror must have shown on her face. "What?"

"What happened to your brother?"

"He's okay. He wanted to spend tonight with his family. Oh, with the staff? I was able to, you know, counteract it, because I was linked up to him and I had the circlet, and as near as I can tell the magic wave form produced by the stone and the staff are equal but opposite, and cancelled each other out." He frowned. "Although the fact that I could do that through our link suggests that the waves are not, like, a physical wave that just happens to encounter the pain centres or pleasure centres of our brains, but one that manifests primarily if not exclusively in our brains, which would explain the need for skin contact--"

"What was he training you for?"

"It's a long story," Vegard sighed. "I think it was actually supposed to be something kind of like this, tonight. Now that I think about this wave, though--"

"I need you to park that thought," she said, drawing a cream-coloured sheet of paper out of a drawer. "It's very important that we get this down. Listen." She tapped the paper, and pulled out a chair behind her desk for him to sit. "I'm going to set this up to record. When the light fades, start talking to it. Tell it about this training you had with Aruviel and the Kvølstafur. I'll be in and out, perhaps helping you along with questions, until the authorities get here. When they do, I will likely have to go, but keep talking."

"Could it help you get Aruviel if he planned this attack?" Vegard asked. 

"Likely not for this attack," Kristtorn admitted. "It might help with the investigation. But if he used the Kvølstafur against humans, he'll face justice for that." She sketched a glyph with her finger. It glowed salmon-coloured for a moment before sinking into the paper. Then she turned to him. "I'm sorry, but the spell needs your true name. You can do that while I'm gone--"

"Vegard Urheim Ylvisåker," he said.

She barked out a laugh. "Vegard Urheim Ylvisåker, I don't know if you remember me from last Solstice, but you must be the holiest of fools to have lasted six months among us and still be that willing to give out your true name!" She reinscribed the same glyph on his forehead, where it glowed blue for a moment. "I don't have to tell you--or maybe I do, I don't know how much you know about this spell--tell it only your best understanding of the truth, or things will go badly for you."

He frowned at her. "I don't understand spells yet, but I do understand affidavits." He started to talk to the paper, his words appearing as he spoke them. 

She did want to hear, but she really did have to go out and see what was going on. The security team had the Vinael kid disarmed without hurting him, thank goodness. The revellers were huddled on the sidewalk. Someone had brought out a set of bongos, a langeleik, and a couple of seljefløytes, and there was a jam going on, although the langeleik was slightly out of tune in the cold weather. The dálki, of course, were taking their sweet time. And Linnael Aruviel appeared to still be in his private room. She posted Stefan at the entrance, in case he tried to go anywhere.

When she got back, the human was still talking. It was a wild story, full of swordplay and ostriches and lime jello, and it was all she could do not to bray with laughter in places. The dálki did come, and the officer who came to see her heard about the massacre averted. 

Kristtorn had to leave with the officer momentarily, and when they got back, Vegard looked exhausted and a bit discomposed. "What does it mean if I get a shooting pain here?” he panted, gesturing in the vicinity of his forehead.

"It means you've lied,” the dálki officer said.

"But all I said was, 'The end.' Augh!” He winced, and his hand flew to his head.

"It doesn't think you're done,” the officer said. "Tell it more.”

Vegard told it about the club, about seeing the lios alfar behaving strangely, which reminded him of the meat of Aruviel's promise to Bård. "There, I guess it was waiting for that,” he said. " _That's_ the end. Yi!” Through his fingers he shot Kristtorn a desperate look. "How do I make it stop?”

"Try being less definitive,” she suggested. 

"Okay. That's all I know for now?” He waited, and looked up, relief on his face. "I think that did it.” The Seal of Luotettavuus flared, and sank into the paper of his statement.

The dálki officer picked up the paper, and skimmed it. "Well...I suppose it's time to call in Lord Aruviel.”

The elf-lord, when he arrived at the office flanked by two of the dálki, looked incensed. "This is persecution, Audhild! If you think that the Bright Court will stand by while you round up and imprison the lios alfar who disagree with you, I fear that you are sadly mistaken.”

"I don't care whether you disagree with me, _Linnael_. I do care that I just busted nine kids bristling with elfshot, who were about to take out themselves, who knows how many others, and my club--”

"That truly is tragic,” Aruviel said, his flawless face rearranging itself into a look of sorrow. "Certainly I disapprove, but I understand the fear and despair that would drive them to such desperate acts.”

"The curious thing, Lord Aruviel, is how they managed to get the elfshot inside. Because as I'm sure you'll recall, there's security at the door now. The only things that made it into the club tonight without being personally inspected by my staff were the chafing dishes from your catering. Do you think, Lord Aruviel, that if the dálki were to inspect the dishes, they might find a couple of utterly clean ones that have not held food?”

"We cleaned some dishes that we were done with! I--honestly, I can't believe you'd stoop to this! It's childish. I used to think you were different from the rest of your people, Audhild.”

She advanced on him. "I also have Sealed testimony from a human who says that you used the Kvølstafur on his brother to attempt to coerce him into attacking unarmed svartalfar at Samhain.”

Vegard had found himself a nice little niche in the corner, and was fiddling with his collarbone as he watched events unfold. Aruviel seemed to see him for the first time. The elf-lord's eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and his mouth tightened into a little round shape. That look had always been intimidating when he'd used it on Kristtorn, but now that she saw it aimed at a human, it was all she could do not to break into laughter.

He glared at her, and then turned to the dálki officers. "May I see the charges against me?"

"No!" Kristtorn cried.

The dálki officer who had just come in and who had not heard Vegard's story gave her an annoyed look. "What harm can it possibly do?" 

"True name!"

He was already holding up Vegard's affadavit for Lord Aruviel to scan. "Are you really that petty, Audhild, to think that a Lord of the Bright Court--”

But Aruviel had already shaped his hands into the doomsign. " _Vegard Urheim Ylvisåker_ , this is your doom," he barked. "To be whipped and branded and burnt and frozen and shocked for the delight of the masses. To be thrown to the ground and mocked by your own kin, to have your secrets exposed, to be humiliated again and again before seas of onlookers. And they're going to laugh at you." Aruviel leered. "Even your greatest success will be a failure, and they will _laugh_."

In the silence that followed, both of the dálki shot a tense look at Vegard, who had lowered his hands and looked politely attentive when Aruviel began. As the elf kept talking, the wattage of Vegard's smile kept going up, and now he was positively radiant. Clearly he had some great secret, some countercharm that would grind the curse to dust. And then he said, "I accept."

Kristtorn said, "Um...what?"

Vegard shrugged. "I accept. It's fine with me."

"You can curse him back, you know."

One of the dálki officers made a face. "Audhild, even if he had standing, his curse has no weight."

Kristtorn drew herself up to her full height, and then, drawing the shadows around her, grew even taller, to tower over the lios alfar. "Officer, a bit of digging will demonstrate that Linnael Aruviel --pardon me, _Linnael Reizbar Doninha Aruviel_ \--has been instrumental in the planning of not one but _two_ attacks on the patrons of my club. The first of these was an attempt to assassinate Dr. Gisela Freidag on the Summer Solstice, which resulted in two human deaths and necessitated the use of the silver branch at _great_ personal expense. He has betrayed my hospitality, injured my guests, disrupted my commerce, and violated my holy days. If the boy's curse carries no weight, then let him deliver my curse instead." She made the doomsign. "Vegard, speak!"

"Do I have to make the thing with my--? No? Okay. Um." Suddenly the merriment had left him. He went very still, and his face was grave. "Linnael Reizbar Doninha Aruviel, your doom is to...is that... Look. You're a bigot and a bully, and much worse. And until you decide to change that, the people who were your friends will turn away from you, and your daughters will treat you with contempt. And you will never understand why I accepted." His brown eyes were misted with tears. "And maybe I am a fool, but that makes you the object of a fool's pity."

The dálki officer who had heard his testimony said, "That was well said, boy."

"I can have your shield for saying that," Aruviel seethed, twisting in their grip.

"Don't make us bind your hands, Lord Aruviel." The dálki gripped him tighter, and with their free hands they sketched the glyphs that would take them Underhill to face lios alfar justice--everyone's justice now, ostensibly, although Kristtorn suspected it would take decades or centuries for that to be true in practice. 

As the magic built to a crescendo around them, Aruviel wrestled free of their hands enough to cast his own glyph. Kristtorn shouted a warning, but it was too late to act, and when the dálki disappeared with their prisoner, so did Vegard.

***

"Ai!" Vegard yelped, as the world changed around him. He sighed, and leaned against the solid object he sensed behind him. "I will be _so_ happy when people stop doing that!"

His breath steamed. It was very, very cold. He stuck his hands under his arms and looked around, getting his bearings. 

He stood outside, in the dark, under a moon waxing nearly full, on top of a snow-covered hill, inside a circle of standing stones. He was alone. In jeans and a sweater. On the longest night of the year.


	14. REDNINGSMANNEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The most awful feeling / The plateau / Final thoughts / The race / Sunrise

Bård planted a kiss on the nape of Maria's neck, rolled over, and rose from the bed. 

"Are you okay?" she murmured sleepily. 

He leaned forward with one knee on the mattress, and bent to whisper in her ear. "I can't settle down. I'm gonna go burn off some nervous energy."

She turned her face towards his, and they shared a kiss before he pulled on a pair of boxer briefs, grabbed his phone, and crept out to the kitchen.

It had started about ten minutes ago, a little _zing_ of adrenaline that woke him from a sound sleep. That had subsided, but he couldn't drift off again. He'd developed a nagging feeling that something had happened to Vegard, and although he tried to ignore it, to talk himself out of it, to be fully present during the time that he'd set aside for his family, it had now solidified into a sense of impending doom. It was silly to lie in bed worrying about something that could be taken care of with a quick call.

He thumbed down to T in his contacts, and found the number. It rang a couple of times, and then picked up. Bård heaved a sigh of relief. "Vegard, are you okay? I'm sorry, I just...I had the most awful feeling."

An only vaguely familiar male voice said, "This is Bård? It's Kit, from St. Gerd's. I'm so glad you called; you're under a nickname I didn't recognize. Your brother was with me, but about an hour and a half ago he handed me his phone and...well, I think something's gone wrong."

Bård sat heavily in a kitchen chair. "What...what? I'm in Bergen, Kit, I... What happened?"

"Long story. Bloody elves. I'll tell you the whole thing, but first I need you to find him."

"Me? How am I...I just told you, I'm on the other side of the country!"

"My landlady says you have Huginn's eyes." 

Bård dropped the phone, and it clattered to the kitchen table. He snatched it up. "Yes. Yes we do."

"Find out where he is and what he's seeing."

He'd forgotten about the eyes. Reaching out to Vegard was like trying to break through a layer of ice. "The mead's wearing off," he said. 

Kit's voice became soothing. "Concentrate. The mead might wear off, but the eyes of Huginn don't. The link is at full strength, whether you remember it's there or not."

After a few seconds of fruitlessly battering himself against the ice, Bård changed his tack and imagined the link as already present, a charged wire that he had only to send himself along. The image worked, and he twitched in startlement, scraping the kitchen chair loudly across the floor. "Oh god. Oh god. He's alone. It's so cold. He's panicking. I can't... He isn't noticing me. I can't calm him down."

"Where is he, Bård?" 

"A bit south. A lot east. Not, not all the way to Oslo. About a third of the way."

"Can you see through his eyes?" 

Bård concentrated. "Rolling ground. Snow-covered. Might be Hardangervidda. I don't see any trees, but his back is against something...oh, turn around, turn around...yes! Okay, it's a stone circle. Taller than him, but not by much. There are eight, um, menhirs, and then a, um, the kind that makes the little door. A dysse."

"Sounds familiar. Which direction?" Kit demanded. "Which direction does the dysse face?"

"I can't tell."

"Do you have a computer there? Internet?"

"Just a sec." Bård grabbed his laptop from where it sat beside the chair, and booted it up. "Okay, go."

"Do an image search for the Nine Sentinels." 

"Nine Sentinels. Yes!" he whooped, and then remembered that his family was sleeping and whispered, "Yes, that looks like it. In...Hardangervidda National Park. Jesus." He clicked on a site, and looked at the map. "Right smack in the middle of Hardangervidda. Okay, but I know now, right? Kit, thank you so much. I'm going to get him some help, okay? I have to go."

"I'll do what I can from this end," Kit promised. "Luck."

Bård dialled 112. When a voice answered, he said, "I need a helicopter to Hardangervidda. I have the exact coordinates. I need someone to go there and get my brother. Vegard Ylvisåker. He's out there and he doesn't have a coat or phone or anything."

"Okay, sir. How did he get out there?"

"There was--oh, god, I don't know. I don't know how he got out there."

"Are you sure that's where he is?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It's hard to explain."

"Sir, did you have something to do with it?"

"No! I just know."

"Because I recognise your voice and I recognise that name, and unless you can prove to me that this isn't one of your ridiculous pranks, I'm going to hang up now."

"No! Please! It was...look, elves took him and that's where they put him and I know it because we both ate these crow's eyes..."

Bård realized that he was shouting at dead air. So he thumbed through his contacts, and chose another. 

"Helene?"

"Hmm...Bård? Hi!" 

"I'm sorry if I woke you, but--"

"Are you looking for Vegard? Because he's out at that club..."

"Uh, yeah, Helene. No, I know where he is. But he's, um...well..."

She laughed sleepily. "Oh, I know how a boys' night can be. Don't sound so guilty! Just take good care of him, all right?"

"The best I can," Bård promised. "Um...do you have the number for his friend Calle? 'Cause his battery's nearly done, see, but we wanted to call Calle, but all we've got is my phone..."

"Sure," she said, and rattled off the number. He thanked her, and rang off.

Stupid, stupid. But he just couldn't tell her the truth. He didn't know how, first of all. And second, she would want to be there, to help him, but if the worst were to happen, Vegard would want the rest of the family kept out of it entirely.

He called the number she'd given him. "Hello?" a deeper voice said.

"Calle, it's Bård Ylvisåker."

"Bård, hi! My god! How are you? How's Vegard?"

"Well...he needs my help. And I need your help."

The voice lost its joviality immediately. "All right. Tell me where I can pick you up."

"No--thank you so much, but no. I'm going to get him now. But I want someone to know where I've gone. I'll be at the stone circle in Hardangervidda. The Nine Sentinels."

Calle was quiet for a long moment. And then he said, "Is he all right? He's been a little off lately. A little...I thought more quiet than down. Do you think he might try to...?"

"Not that," Bård assured him. "If he's hurt, it's not his own doing."

"Are you sure this isn't a matter for the police?"

Bård barked out a mirthless laugh. "Oh, I tried. They're having none of it."

"What about Helene? Or your parents?"

"I tried to tell Helene. I couldn't, I just couldn't. I can't drag her into this. Or Mum and Dad, unless I absolutely have to. But listen, if I don't check in with you by, say, noon tomorrow, send someone to the Nine Sentinels. Preferably someone none of us like. I know that's harsh, but...well... And if they don't come back..."

"Police again?" Calle suggested.

"No. Actually, tell everyone some outrageous lie. Say Vegard wanted to take me on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Japan, and our plane went down. Something like that. Whatever you think you can get away with, without getting yourself into trouble. No one else should follow us into this."

"This is really serious, isn't it?"

"If I try to explain it, you'll laugh at me, but yes it is."

"All right. If you need anything more from me, let me know."

"Actually," Bård said, "do you know of a snowmobile rental place that's open late?"

***

Vegard huddled on the lee side of one of the largest stone. It sucked warmth from his body, but kept the wind at bay.

After that he did a quick inventory--mental, because his hands were tucked under his arms. Wallet. Keys. There was snow on the ground, but not enough to dig a decent shelter, and at these temperatures, in these clothes, he would freeze before he could construct something more elaborate. No trees. No lights, not even in the distance.

He was going to die out here. 

At least it wouldn't hurt. He had heard that much, that freezing was a comparatively easy death. It would be easy for him, that was. It would be hell for Helene. And his mum and dad. For Bjarte. For Bård. Emma wouldn't remember him--small comfort there. 

It wasn't like they would find him right away, either. Bård would know to look at the club, and that was it. They'd probably suspect foul play, but they would have no reason to suppose that he was here. Maybe hikers would find his body in the spring. Or maybe he'd already have been carried off by wild animals. Maybe they'd never find him. 

He was starting to shiver in earnest now. His teeth were chattering. He supposed it had been a good old run. A mostly comfortable life, a modicum of fame, a beautiful and talented girlfriend who somehow smoothed out his rough bits and made up his shortfalls while loving him just the way he was. A precious little daughter. And despite the danger and the terror and the sheer chaos, he wouldn't have traded the past six months for anything. It would have hurt, to go back to a life suddenly devoid of magic. But it was going to hurt more for his little girl to grow up without a daddy. He brought up his forearm so that he could scrub away tears without exposing his hands. 

A shape was moving towards him through the snow.

He stilled, staring up with wide wet eyes at a woman. Her hair was long and brown, and she wore a voluminous fur cloak. She smiled as she approached him, and from the folds of the cloak, stretched out a hand. 

"Are you Death?" he asked. Then he realized the question was moot. He took her hand, and let her pull him to his feet. But instead of whisking him away, she put her arms around him, enfolding him in the cloak, and then tugged him down to sit against the stone. 

And flicked him with her tail.

"Huldra," he said. The word came out all shuddery. 

In answer, she pulled at his sweater until he got the message and, manoeuvring under the cloak, took it off. Next came the jeans and boots and socks and long underwear. When he was down to his boxer briefs, she chastely twined her warm body around his cold one, and pulled the cloak up to cover his nose and ears and most of his head.

"Thank you," he whispered. 

_Flick._

Hurray for Kit. Good old Kit. "I thought I...I didn't think...I thought the hulderfolk would hate me."

_Flick._

"Thank god. Thank god. I felt so terrible about that. How is she?"

_Flick._

"Oh. Well, that's not as good as I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd feared. If you ever see her again...if you could tell her...oh. Just wish her well for me." 

_Flick._

The temperature plunged as the night deepened, but inside the cloak Vegard stopped shivering, warmed by the huldra's body heat and insulated by two layers of thick fur. Relief and comfort warred with sadness and exhaustion. 

_Flick._

"I'm going to forget," he sighed. "Everything. Everyone I've met, everything I've learned, every gift I've been given these past six months."

 _Flick._ She touched his head, smoothing his curls. _Flick._ Her other hand went to his chest over his heart.

"I don't really believe in that sort of thing. It's a beautiful idea, but hearts...there's no mechanism for a heart to store information."

She let out a steamy puff of laughter. _Flick._ She tapped her thumb once against his forehead, and once against the back of his head.

"I suppose that's possible," he said. "Somewhere in there." He perked up a little. "Did you know that the more sensory information you can associate with a memory, the more likely you are to retain it? Because you access it with different parts of your brain, you build all these connections, and then if you lose a few, you still have more."

_Flick flick._

Vegard burst into giggles, and rested his head on her shoulder until he felt his eyes start to drift closed. He sat up, and shook his head. "God, I wish I could do that. I wish I could just touch people and then they would understand."

_Flick._

She explained to him how it worked. Knowing what he knew now, it was the simplest thing in the world, and it made so many other things click into place. He fought to stay awake, to ask questions, to understand. At some point he became aware that her shoulder was holding him up again, but his energy was at a low ebb, and his thoughts were breaking apart like ice floes in a warming sea. Cocooned in warmth, Vegard sagged against the huldra's shoulder. Her hair smelled like honey and sunshine and spice.

***

Bård reached the top of a hill, and plunged down again. According to the GPS, he still had many miles to go, but the snowmobile was good and fast. And Vegard had military training. If he could find or make some kind of shelter, it might be possible to get to him in time.

Calle had texted him with a phone number not long after their conversation had ended. He'd apparently ended up getting an old friend's sister's ex out of bed. The woman had been grumpy when Bård called, but when she'd heard what he was prepared to pay, she was more than willing to rent out her GPS-equipped Alpina Sherpa and its trailer, and throw in two helmets and a couple of spare portable gas tanks, one of which was partially full. She'd lent him her snowmobile suit, too, but it was too small for him. He brought it anyway, because it would probably fit Vegard. Bård himself wore jeans over jogging pants over long underwear, four layers of shirts and sweaters under his parka, a Finland hood under the borrowed helmet, and both gloves and mittens on his hands. He hadn't bothered to put the heat on in the Corolla on the way here; if he'd sweated then, he'd be freezing now. 

He'd bought fuel in Bergen, reached Ullensvang around three in the morning, and driven up the side of the plateau as far as the road would take him before parking the Corolla and trailer at the side of the road and unloading the snowmobile. Things with engines weren't allowed in the park, and as he started up the Alpina and heard it roar, he'd hoped that someone would see or hear him and call the police. 

The road had run alongside the Opo River, and he'd just continued along that until he was at the top, detouring a little to cross the water where it flowed less swiftly and had frozen over. Now he was riding east over barren, undulating, snowy moors, and ice-covered lakes. The moon had risen over the plateau, nearly full and so bright that the snow gleamed and Bård's shadow, inky blue, travelled beside him. So far he was making good time, but the terrain at the horizon looked complicated, and he possessed no illusions that he could keep the same pace all the way through. 

In perhaps fifteen minutes, he got a better look at what he was facing, and his heart sank. Here was a ravine with a river at the bottom, and there was no quick way around it. From the way the ground ahead of him wrinkled and folded and rose and plunged into darkness, this was the first of many. The GPS was pointing out a route, but it was going to be slow and precarious, especially in the dark.

Still, the longer he waited, gaping, the longer it would take to reach Vegard. With a heavy sigh, he pushed forward, edging down the ravine. 

It took absurdly much time to navigate even the one ravine. And then there was a second, not far off, and a third. This one at least had a gentler slope, and he started down as fast as he dared go. 

He thought he heard noise somewhere in the distance, a roar above the snowmobile's engine. Wind, perhaps. He didn't dare hope that they'd somehow come through with a helicopter anyway. The noise stopped, and then came again, in a different place. Thunder? The weather was all wrong for thunder, and the worst of it was, he heard that thought in Vegard's voice. He contemplated killing the engine to listen, but thirty seconds might be the difference between life and death. 

As he descended, he heard other noises, closer. They were all around him. He started seeing things in his peripheral vision, pale shapes streaking past. One of them ran into the path of his headlights, and he cut his speed further so as not to hit it. A white tail. Hooves. He could just make out a rack of antlers. Reindeer, and whatever they were running from was apparently scarier than the snowmobile. 

He could see the bottom of the hill now, the humps of ice that warned of water at the bottom. He would have to be careful. Something fell near him hard enough to shake the ground. A large, dark shape loomed in his peripheral vision, and suddenly one of the reindeer in front of him screamed, and was lifted, its hindquarters disappearing upwards. The noise of the engine didn't quite cover the deer's cries, or the wet tearing noises that ensued. Bård turned a little more to the east, to lessen the slope, and gunned the engine. 

He hit the bottom of the ravine with a crunch, but the Alpina was going fast enough that he powered right out of the dent he'd made in the ice. Running over the frozen stream, he was able to travel at a much higher speed than he'd been managing on the slope. But the thing that had gone after the deer was chasing him, and its footfalls shook the whole ravine.

He was coming up to the base of a waterfall, and had to run the snowmobile around and up the side of the hill at top speed. The rise wasn't a big one, but it was steep enough that only traction and momentum kept him from going over. Then there was another one the same. Every time he had to detour around falls, the thing behind him gained on him a little more. He returned to the streambed, which had broadened into more of a small lake now, and shot forward. 

The thing had picked up speed now. Bård saw the lakebed ahead of him narrowing, and knew that would mean swiftly flowing water and thinner ice. He moved as close as he could to the shore without losing speed, but the thing behind him was gaining. He could see a huge dark shape in his peripheral vision. He veered further onto the water to avoid it, and then had to brake suddenly as it came down in front of him. Underneath him, he heard ice crack and craze. The Alpina gave a mighty lurch, and he had time to think, _I'm not going to survive this_.

Something grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and lifted him clear out of the saddle. A voice that sounded like rocks grinding together said, "No engines." 

The creature that held him had to be twenty feet tall. Its breath stank of reindeer blood. With the moon behind it, all Bård could see were massive shoulders, no neck to speak of, ears that must be the size of dinner plates, and the gleam of eyes. With its other hand, it held the Alpina out to him accusingly. 

Bård shut his eyes. "I'm sorry, truly I am," he called up to it, "but my brother's out there."

The troll shifted its grip on him, and he let out an astonished bleat. When a sense of dizzying movement made him open his eyes, he saw that they were over the river, and the troll was climbing the other side of the ravine. Twice there was a jolt and a sense of freefall, and he found himself in the snow, held tightly but not painfully in the troll's grip as it touched a knuckle to the ground to steady itself. 

It climbed with him up ridges, down gullies, and over peaks, holding him in one hand and the Alpina in the other. It strode uncaring over lakes, even when the ice gave way beneath it and plunged it ankle-deep into frozen water. Any movement over western Hardangervidda's complicated topography was progress, and for a long time, Bård clung to a faint hope that the troll would tire of him and the Alpina, and he could escape, closer to Vegard than when he'd started. But the troll kept holding up the snowmobile to look at it, and when Bård realized what it was doing, his heart gave a leap of joy: the troll was checking the GPS. 

The folds of western Hardangervidda slowly gave way to the rolling moorlands of the eastern side. They'd been travelling on this for about half an hour when the troll stopped, looked at the sky, sniffed the air, and lowered the Alpina to the ground. "Long walk home," it said. "Dawn coming. Easy from here."

"Thank you," Bård said shakily. "Thank you so much. You saved my life. Maybe you saved his too."

"Hope so," the troll said. It pointed to the Alpina. "Tonight. Never again. Right?"

"Right," Bård said, with a vigorous nod. 

The troll gave him a thumbs up, which he returned. Then it strode southwest, shaking the ground with each footfall. 

Bård paused just long enough to refuel, pee, and check his watch. A little over three hours had passed. That was a lot of time, but as he started the snowmobile--which the troll had left mercifully intact--he consoled himself by trying to work out how much time it would have taken to get this far without help. 

Then he was on his way again, travelling as fast as he dared, and the world shrank to what he could see in his headlights. Undulating snow-covered ground. Nothing but rock and snow, and a little screen urging him onward. 

He was cold and hungry, and he ached. Bed, when he got there, was going to feel good. If he was in time, he reminded himself. If sleep wasn't just a respite from a grief that would consume everything for a good long while. 

There was a point at which he realized that he could see the outlines of things beyond the narrow area in front of his headlights. The longest night of the year was coming to an end, finally. 

As the light in the eastern sky waxed, Bård's hope waned. Vegard had been out here for eight hours. Bård wasn't going to find his brother. He was going to find a body. Still he pressed on, his muscles cramping, tears freezing when they hit his ski mask. 

The GPS showed him drawing nearer. Forty-five minutes...thirty...

The sky was rosy in the east when he saw, in the distance, the hill on which the Nine Sentinels stood. Fifteen minutes. Ten. Five. As he drew near, he saw that there was a shape at the base of the stone circle. He thought, before a dip hid it from sight, that it was too large to be Vegard, but he gunned the motor and shot forward. 

The shape came into view again, much smaller than it had first looked. He knew the sweater and shirt that topped the stack of clothing folded neatly next to it. Bård had heard of hypothermia confusing people, making them pull off their clothes before they froze to death. He killed the motor, was off the snowmobile and running so fast that he'd halved the distance to his brother before the machine drifted to a full stop. "Vegard!" he sobbed.

As the midwinter sun rose above the horizon, its first rays illuminated Vegard lying slumped at the base of the stone in nothing but his boxer briefs. 

And then he whimpered and rolled onto his side, curling into a tight, shivering ball.

Bård pulled off his helmet and mask and mittens and gloves and knelt next to him, half believing that this was still wishful thinking. But the shoulder that he touched was warm. And when Vegard raised his head, groggily, the cheek that Bård pressed to his own was flushed and damp. 

Bård handed him the stack of discarded clothes. Incredibly, they still held some residual warmth. "Put these on," he said. "Hurry. I have more winter clothes back at the snowmobile."

Vegard picked up his socks, looked at them for a moment, and burst into tears.

When Bård returned, Vegard was pulling on his sweater, but still crying. It made perfect sense to Bård, but try as he might, he couldn't remember why. He tried to think of a way to get his brother to clue him in without asking point-blank. "Would it help to talk about it?" he asked as he helped Vegard into the snowmobile suit and then bundled a fleece blanket around him. 

Vegard stopped for a moment, and frowned. "I don't even know," he said. "I just feel like...I... something's gone. Forever." For a few seconds, Bård felt it too, a sense of overwhelming loss that he couldn't put a name to. Then Vegard sniffed hard, tightened his jaw, and seemed to master the tears. He tugged the mitts that Bård had brought onto his hands, and, clutching the menhir for support, struggled to his feet. "What am I doing out here, anyway? Where are we?"

Bård shook his head helplessly. He pulled out his phone. "The GPS says we're in the middle of Hardangervidda National Park. It looks like I programmed a route...god, did I really drive to Ullensvang from Bergen last night?"

"Maybe I drove?"

"No, I was going to get you. I remember that much. I'm just appalled at myself." He remembered drifting to sleep next to Maria...and then a maelstrom, ice and wind and terror and being tossed side to side as he raced against time. "I'm dead sober now, but I can't remember enough to have been remotely okay to drive." He offered an arm to Vegard, who shook his head and walked clumsily to the snowmobile. 

Vegard scrambled onto the seat. "Still, I'm glad you did. I don't know why I was undressed, but I wouldn't have lasted long out here without you."

Bård studied the stone circle. There were only three sets of footprints there. His to and from the circle, and Vegard's from it, just now. The rest of the snow was unbroken. "Vegard? How did you...?"

"How did I what, Bård?"

Bård shook his head. "Never mind." He joined his brother at the snowmobile, topped up the gas, and started the engine. Part of him thought that it was a little odd that Vegard hadn't wanted to drive, and part of him thought that no, no one would expect him to drive under the circumstances, although what those circumstances were he couldn't say. 

The trip through the eastern part of the plateau was smooth, and even the western side was far easier to navigate in daylight. Fighting drowsiness, promising himself that if Vegard wasn't okay to drive the Corolla they'd find a hotel in Ullensvang, Bård drove them back to the edge of the park, to where the GPS said he'd come from, and where his own vehicle was waiting. He paused only to answer an inexplicably anxious text from one of Vegard's school friends. 

Against his back, he felt, rather than heard, Vegard sobbing as if his heart were breaking.


	15. OVERBAKKENMENN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: May, 2011

An unremitting drizzle fell from the night sky, turning the coffee shop on the promenade into an oasis of warmth and light. Bård shook out the umbrella that he'd shared with Vegard, and they went together to the counter. 

"I think everything looks great,” Bård said. "And the suit was a good find. The suit is gold."

"I am _not_ getting married in a gold suit," Vegard interjected.

"But you’d be gambling, having it outside. You know, I don't know how you can look at this stuff when you just had two helpings of birthday cake.” 

"I'm being smug rather than covetous,” Vegard replied, eying a leathery thing that dared to call itself wienerbrød. "These have nothing on Mum's kokoskake. So, do you think you and Maria...?”

"No,” Bård said. "Tall white hot chocolate with soy, please. And a shot of, hm, orange. And whipped cream. Not like that, anyway. No offence. If we ever did, we'd probably just elope. Neither of us likes a lot of fuss.”

"Could I please have a tall hot chocolate?” Vegard screwed up his face for a second. Then he shook his head. "So, about the fall...” He trailed off, and stared at Bård.

"Vegard? What is it?”

"I just realized, you look like your driver's license photo. And I was about to ask what’s wrong, and I just...I just got the strangest feeling of déjà vu.”

"Yeah,” Bård said.

"No, really.”

"Let's find a table, Vegard. There's a reason I wanted to come here instead of just hanging out at Mum and Dad's.”

They got their drinks, and found a table for two in the back of the café. Without preamble, Bård said, "What do you remember about the second half of 2007?”

"What do I remember?” Vegard echoed. "Emma,” he said with a goofy smile, gesturing to Bård's pocket, where the corner of a drawing for Uncle Bård was visible. "And the move. And running all over the country for _Norway's Most Wonderful_.”

"Do you remember anything weird going on?”

"What, weirder than vomiting my way through a comic book museum? Or watching you walk around naked outside someone's trailer? Or dressing in a frilly purple blouse and operating a monkey puppet in a crowd? Or being flogged in a hairdresser's basement while wearing a leopard-print thong?”

Bård didn't laugh. "Yes, actually. When I was at TVNorge last week, I ran into Ulf.”

"Oh, Ulf? How is he?”

"Doing well. Based in Trondheim now. He wanted to know if either of us wanted the old footage.”

"Yeah? I'm okay, but if you have room for it and you want it...”

Bård brought his fists down on the table, not hard, but enough to show that he was being serious. "Vegard, the way he asked, it was like... I said the same thing you said, and he's like, 'Okay, just look at this.' And we were there for four hours. He kept going, 'But remember this? Remember _this_?' Everything's got something wrong with it, but it looked kind of...” He shook his head. "I couldn't _remember_ remember anything that was going on, but--”

"What was going on?” Vegard asked.

Bård held his gaze. "In Kristiansand, you had the camera and...you stepped off the ground, onto this ribbon of light, and walked out over the water.”

"I'm sure I would have remembered something like that,” Vegard said with a grin. After four years, he was still fresh-faced, and his smile was sweet, but it had a new authority to it. 

"It looks like we did some wild drugs in a crypt,” Bård told him. 

" _What_?”

"Out of one of those communion cups. We drank, and just started giggling. And he fast-forwarded, and we were still giggling. And he fast-forwarded some more, and we were outside, and _still_ giggling.”

"We could have just been drunk already. That happened a couple of times.”

"There was something else with us, though. All staticked out.”

"Interference.”

"It handed you the cup.” Bård registered the surprise on his brother's face, and ploughed ahead. "And then one was all kind of tinted a funny colour. We were interviewing some guy in a suit--it bothered my eyes to look at him, like there was something really really wrong about him--and he attacked you with a sword.”

Vegard narrowed his eyes a little. "Oh. I think I have very dim memories of that. Wait, was that the role-playing guy, or...?” He shook his head, and his fingers drifted to his upper lip. "I had a lot going on, though. I wasn't getting a lot of sleep.”

"I guess it's nothing really...definitive,” Bård admitted. "But I've been having the strangest dreams ever since. And thinking back, feeling like I'm missing something important. And I was just wondering what you remembered.”

"I don't think I missed any of the important things,” Vegard told him. "But listen, we did a lot of bizarre stuff that year. Hey, do you remember that time a couple of days before Christmas when I woke up naked in the middle of Hardangervidda?”

Bård started to laugh. "Right! God! That must have been some wild night. You know, we should ask Calle when we see him about the show. Because apparently the snowmobile came from one of his friends.”

"Let's ask Calle,” Vegard said, "because I don't remember a thing.” He looked at his little brother's face, and added, gently, "Tell Ulf that he can have the footage, if he wants it. Or he can just erase it. I have no use for it, and you've got way too much going on in your life to hang onto something that gives you bad dreams.”

"They weren't all bad,” Bård said.

"You know there's a rational explanation,” Vegard assured him. "But that was then, and we really have to pay attention to now.”

"Speaking of paying attention,” Bård said, "I saw you take the bologna.”

Vegard snatched his hand away from his mouth, and sat up straight with a twitch of his shoulders. "What?”

"I'm not upset; just mystified. You could have asked Mum, and she'd have given it to you. Or you could have just bought your own. Except I know you don't even like it that much.”

"It's the Kraft Singles of meats,” Vegard said.

"So why did you take it?”

Vegard fingered the plastic package tucked in among his birthday gifts, and only shrugged.

"You're a weird little man sometimes, Vegard Ylvisåker. Just weird. And get your hand away from your mouth. We can't sit there interviewing guests if it's me asking all the questions and you're just playing with your face.” 

Vegard clamped a hand over his face, spider-like, and said from behind his palm, "'So, tell us about the character you play in this new film.' Doesn't work?”

"When we get wildly world-famous and can have Sigourney Weaver on, maybe. But let's get through one season first.” Bård swirled the dregs of his drink around in the cup, and then finished it. 

"And then the stage show," Vegard said. "Found it, by the way. It's called aerial silk."

"Aerial silk." Bård paused to key this into his phone. "Thanks. Six months. Think I can do it?"

Vegard drained his hot chocolate, and looked at his cup for a little while before setting it back down and meeting Bård's eyes. "I think six months can change everything.” He collected the cups and tossed them in the recycling, and then the two of them shrugged on their jackets.

Outside, huddled under the umbrella, they made their way across the promenade, to where they’d parked Bård’s Corolla. Helene had offered to drop off Maria, Sofie, Nora, and little Jens in the Turan, and while relocating Jens’ car seat was always a headache, the brothers had gratefully taken her up on it. 

Vegard paused for a moment, setting his bag of birthday gifts on the edge of a fountain. He pulled out the purloined package of bologna, tossed it into the water, and then gathered up the bag and ducked back under the umbrella.

Bård, looking back, stifled a bray of laughter. "What the hell was that?”

"What was what?”

"You just threw an unopened package of lunchmeat-- _Mum’s_ unopened package of lunchmeat--in the fountain.”

Vegard frowned. "Did I? It must have fallen.”

"No, it must not. You deliberately picked it up and threw it in. I watched you.”

"Huh,” Vegard said, as if he were as surprised as anyone. He looked back at the meat bobbing in the water. "Well, I’m not going to fish it out. I don’t even like bologna, and it’ll be all chloriney now, and I don’t even know why I took it. I’ll make it up to Mum somehow.”

"Whatever. Weirdo.”

"Anyway,” Vegard said, as they walked together through the rainy streets of Bergen, "as to what I’ll be doing while you do the aerial silk--”

"Yeah?” Bård said.

"I'm going to learn to play the cello.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far, thanks for reading! 
> 
> I researched what I could, but I've taken some liberties with chronology, geography, and mythology. There are probably some glaring errors, too, for which I do apologize, and I welcome corrections. 
> 
> To my knowledge, the Nine Sentinels are pure fiction, as are Skygge, Det Blå Rommet, Vertshusmunn, Sverres Gate Nord, the chapel of St. Gerd, Helgistjörð, NUA on Alverøya, and, alas, Golem. 
> 
> Many thanks to Derek and Jennifer, who told me that fanfic was better than what I'd been reading; and to the authors here, particularly Lillie Wescott, who showed me.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What does Huldra say? - Hva sier huldra?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7880110) by [SyntaxError (other)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/other/pseuds/SyntaxError)




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